"The risk in this decision was not making it" ~ Sam Presti

[IDreamCeltics]

Thread title is a quote from thunder general manager Sam Presti explaining his thought process on the Paul George trade.

The rest of the article is on ESPN.com right now

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19977741/paul-george-said-was-initially-surprised-be-traded-oklahoma-city-thunder

Your thoughts?

[Roy H.]

In general, the idea that a team shouldn't trade table scraps for a superstar with one year left on his deal is silly.  The NBA is behind other sports in this regard. MLB seems to have a better handle on this particular issue.

[obnoxiousmime]

It was a good risk for the Thunder because they still need to convince Westbrook to stay long term. If they hadn't made a dramatic gesture in adding another star, Westbrook would probably wonder what the point in sticking around was. Also, it didn't cost much in terms of assets.

OKC is not a great market and they needed to do something bold to acquire a star. Frankly, I think they were a little fortunate Indiana chose their offer, but I think Pritchard had a mandate from ownership to not do a full rebuild. That means they needed veteran players signed long-term (so they wouldn't just leave) coming back.

Also, OKC is in the West and despite the presence of Westbrook is probably not going to become a superpower, meaning it was a relatively "safe" place to trade him.

By the way, I don't think there's any way he stays in OKC, no matter what he says publicly.

[LGC88]

It's a gamble and I believe it was necessary for OKC.
I still think PG is gone next season and maybe Wes too.
Magic Johnson must have an FA plan next year to contend immediately. I believe that's why PG is very vocal about joining Lakers. He prefers to say it first instead of pulling a KD.

[tazzmaniac]

I agree with his statement.  This was a no risk, no brainer trade for OKC.  Oladipo and Sabonis aren't meaningful losses and losing Oladipo's contract is a positive.  OKC has a decent shot at retaining George.  He was fine playing in a market like Indiana but wanted to be on a contender.  He may well have that playing in OKC.  Even George he leaves, the effort to go after a 2nd star may encourage Westbrook to stay.  If both leave, OKC is setup to go into a rebuild mode if they want to. 

On another note, the Patrick Patterson signing was a very good acquisition.  Per the article below, his 3yr/16.4M contract was the largest contract given to another team's free agent in the Presti era.  Contrast that to a lot of teams that foolishly lock in big money on mid-level free agents that don't make a difference. 
https://cleaningtheglass.com/cornered-market/

[kmart12]

I honestly think that if George were to come to Boston that he would have ended up staying here. We have a nice team and a winning culture/history, far different than Indiana. For all of his talk about joining LA, they aren't winning anything any time soon and he's aware of that. He even recently made some lousy metaphor about how LA needs to get it's stuff together before he joins. I wouldn't be surprised if he resigned with OKC after playing with Westbrook and winning some games. I think that team could have been us.

[slamtheking]

for what OKC gave up, it was worth the risk.  in theory they have a chance to get PG to resign and to show Westbrook they're committed to winning.

for Boston, it'd be like giving up Rozier/Smart and Zizic/Yabu for PG.  for that equivalent, it would have made sense for Danny to do that deal though I suspect Indy would have held out for a lot more in our case.

[Fan from VT]

Yeah, I think there is an incredible amount to this story that we will never know.

Sabonis looked awful last year. Oladipo is right in the anti-sweetspot. Young-ish player completely off his rookie deal.

The Celtics equivalent would be something like Smart at 4/80 and Yabu. From what i can see, there was way more interest around the league in Zizic after his age 19 Euroleague season than in Sabonis and his 1 year of awfulness.

So, if it was a hypothetical Smart at 20 million per year and Yabu with no picks, that would be a no brainer.

But I strongly doubt that was the case. There are way to many rumblings of Pritchard taking this all personally, other GMs being shocked and astounded at the poor return, GMs being surprised he was dealt without any genuine shopping first, and a strong sens that he was not going to send PG to a desired contender or the eastern conference. Pritchard's leaks sound like defensiveness for someone who got embarrassingly bad return.

[obnoxiousmime]

I honestly think that if George were to come to Boston that he would have ended up staying here. We have a nice team and a winning culture/history, far different than Indiana. For all of his talk about joining LA, they aren't winning anything any time soon and he's aware of that. He even recently made some lousy metaphor about how LA needs to get it's stuff together before he joins. I wouldn't be surprised if he resigned with OKC after playing with Westbrook and winning some games. I think that team could have been us.

He wouldn't be going to the current LA team that you see now. He would be teaming up with at least one other star. The question for LA is whether they can get rid of the Deng and/or Clarkson contracts without having to deal Ingram or Ball. They don't have their first rounder this year as we all know, so that will make it more difficult.

[Neurotic Guy]

I think it's a waste of time discussing the C's not trading for George unless we know exactly what assets it would have cost the C's.   There is a strong argument to be made that the hypothetical equivalent of what OKC sent would not have been enough persuade Indy to make a deal with Boston.  How much more it would have taken is forever unknown.   Also unknown is how Danny is going to get a superstar (top 5-ish player) on this team (sooner or later).  But I suspect he's thinking about it a lot.