Fake trade season is fun, and emotions have run high after the collapse. But we shouldn’t expect the LA Clippers to trade Paul George.
Almost immediately after the LA Clippers lost in the Conference Semis to the Denver Nuggets, the idea of trading Paul George was everywhere on Twitter. After his performance in the bubble, some folks wanted to see a change made.
And to an extent, I get it. We were all mad at how the season ended, and we’re naturally going to want to make a big change. Something about trying the same thing and expecting different results being bad, right? You combine that with how much fun it is to play around on the trade machine, and the idea of trading PG was bound to be common.
But the team has made their big change. They gave Doc Rivers exactly one year with these Clippers and then fired him when he didn’t get the job done. And they hired Ty Lue, in part because of the continuity it would give the roster while still bringing in a new system. It seems unlikely that they would then wreck that continuity by trading one of their two stars.
In that vein, let’s check out a few reasons that Paul George shouldn’t, and most likely won’t, be traded in the offseason.
LA Clippers’ Reason to Not Trade Paul George: He’s Still a Star
Yes, Paul George is still a star. He’s a 6’8 wing who can attack the rim and shoot threes at 41% while providing good defense. By any advanced metric you want to use – BPM, VORP, PER, WS/48, any of it, Paul George rates as very very good.
By more traditional stats, he put up 21.5 points, 5.7 rebounds and 3.9 assists, to go along with 1.4 steals in only 29.6 minutes per game while shooting an absurd 41.2% from three. Regular season Paul George was every bit the baller that he was last year in OKC.
With Kawhi Leonard‘s iso game being primarily post and midrange (50.5% of his shot attempts came from inside the three point line but outside the restricted area), having a running-mate who is a sniper from three who can also slash to the rim is invaluable.
On defense, PG is one of the absolute best in the league at getting around screens and staying on his man. He can take the job of primary iso defender from Kawhi on nights where Kawhi’s got to expend more energy on the offensive side.
If the Clippers can get themselves a playmaker, then Paul George is stylistically one of the best guys you could ask for to put beside Leonard. That’s why he was a guy Kawhi wanted to play with, and why the team won’t seriously entertain moving him.
PG is motivated to prove the naysayers wrong next season, and I, for one, totally believe him. I think more time to rehab his shoulders and an offseason to focus on a new system is going to lead to a Paul George who is ready to set the league on fire.
LA Clippers’ Reason to Not Trade Paul George: They Would be Selling Low
For two reasons, the LA Clippers would be minimizing their return if they traded Paul George now: his playoff performance and his contract.
Playoff Performance
There’s no question that the Playoffs and the Bubble were not kind to Paul George. His per-36 minutes numbers dropped from 26/7/4.7 on 44%/41%/88% shooting down to 20/6/3.7 on 40%/33%/91% shooting.
He was very open about his struggles in the bubble, and how the isolation led to anxiety and depression that affected his performance. This is in no way an indictment of that or a judgement based on that.
But the trade market is going to view that recent performance and dock his value significantly. If the Clippers were to trade him now, it probably wouldn’t be viewed as one of the league’s best players being made available. Instead, teams would see, unfairly so, that there’s a reclamation project, and that maybe taking a flyer on PG gets you the OKC version of him.
We know we have a star on our roster, but the teams who would be trading for him probably wouldn’t value him as such.
Contract
The other issue which pushes PG’s trade value down is his contract. He’s got a player option next year, which he will probably opt out of and re-up on a max. So teams trading for PG will view him as an expiring.
If you’re a small market team, do you give up a huge haul for a PG who could leave after next season? Probably not, right?
So that means that, if anybody’s going to trade for Paul George, it’s got to be either a big market that thinks they can convince him to stay, or a team that thinks adding Paul George wins them a championship, in which case he’ll probably stay. So we’re probably looking at
- New York Knicks
- Brooklyn Nets
- Miami Heat
- Milwaukee Bucks
- Philadelphia 76ers
- Los Angeles Lakers
- Golden State Warriors
- Denver Nuggets
- Dallas Mavericks
- Boston Celtics
Maybe I missed one or two, but those are the teams I could see even potentially reasoning themselves into a PG trade, but none of them are giving up what we would see as fair value. Does Spencer Dinwiddie and Caris Levert do it for you?
We’re not getting a star back from any of those teams, if they would even want to trade for PG (which several of them probably wouldn’t). Between his playoffs and his contract, we’re not getting anything fair back for PG, so it shouldn’t be considered.
LA Clippers’ Reason to Not Trade Paul George: If He Walks, They Have Flexibility
There’s been a lot of consternation regarding the possibility of Paul George leaving the LA Clippers after the upcoming season. After all, if things go south, he can opt out of his player option and leave.
Let me be clear, that wouldn’t be a good thing. Losing a star is always bad.
But I have a lot of optimism in Kawhi staying, given that he chose to come to the Clips. So if PG leaves, we’re in the situation of looking to keep building around Kawhi. And with George off the books (if he walks), the front office can easily put themselves in a position to do that.
With some careful cap management, and depending on whether any multi-year deals are signed in this offseason, the Clippers could be looking at anywhere between 20 and 40 million in cap room in 2020-21 if PG leaves.
This isn’t a guarantee, of course. A big deal for Marcus Morris and/or Montrezl Harrell this offseason would put the clamps on that. As would a trade for a playmaker on a big contract. But it’s hard for me to see this front office, as forward thinking as it was in building the team, not keeping their options open in 20/21.
If they trade George, especially for a platter of decent role players to put around Kawhi, that probably immediately squashes our flexibility next offseason, unless they somehow get a bunch of role players who are all expiring.
I should clarify again here, that I would the put the odds heavily on Kawhi and PG both wanting to return. But if the front office wants to keep an eye on the free agent market that offseason and keep as much flexibility as they can to build around Kawhi Leonard, keeping PG is the move that makes sense.
What do you think? Should Paul George get traded, or do you agree that the right thing to do is keep him? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook, and follow along here for all things LA Clippers!