Speaking on ESPN’s Get Up, Brian Windhorst said Paul George and the Los Angeles Clippers could be headed for a breakup. The Clippers haven’t budged off their offer to George, and the All-Star wing doesn’t seem inclined to accept it.
Windhorst said that the focus shouldn’t just be on cap space teams for George as a free agent. Instead, he said it’s more likely that George will opt-in and request a trade, if he’s leaving the Clippers this offseason. The maneuver is similar to the one Chris Paul utilized in 2017 to join the Houston Rockets. This strategy would increase the pool of teams that could acquire the veteran wing, beyond just the handful of cap space teams this summer. The Philadelphia 76ers, who have cap space, are believed to be moving onto options beyond George.
The Clippers also reportedly don’t believe that George wants to leave Los Angeles. They are believed to have offered a similar deal to the three-year, below-max extension worth $152 million over three seasons that Kawhi Leonard signed with the team during last season. George is eligible for up to a four-year, $221.1 million deal with the Clippers.
The New York Knicks could be a team with the assets to pull off a trade for George, which Windhorst explained during an appearance later in the morning on First Take.
“They’ve got a whole bevy of trades that they can make with their draft picks, plus they have tradable pieces on their roster,” said Windhorst. “Their front office has done a great job to do this, specifically Bojan Bogdanovich, who has a team option for around $20 million in his contract. They could pick that up and use it with the draft picks as a big trade piece. You could add another big piece there.
“That’s why people are talking about the possibility of Paul George going to the Knicks. The Knicks, if Paul George wanted it, could manufacture a trade without too much sweat and still keep their core pieces together.”
George is represented by Aaron Mintz of CAA.