The Oklahoma City Thunder are back to rebuilding mode after a couple of superstars left the team during the offseason. Russell Westbrook and Paul George moved to the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Clippers, respectively. Although he didn’t want to lose them, general manager Sam Presti wished the pair all the best in future.
Still, Presti disagreed with George’s claims that it was a mutual decision to trade him to the Clippers.
“I think the world of PG. I think everybody knows that,” Presti said. “I know that he had used the term ‘mutual.’ I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that because that would infer that we were wanting to trade Paul George, which I think most people would agree that that probably wasn’t on the top of our offseason priority list. But I would say that it was not adversarial at all, and I also fully respect the way that it was handled. And the fact that we were able to make it work in a way that benefited the franchise made it something that we could do.”
Sam Presti politely says he doesn't really agree with Paul George's use of the term "mutual" in trading him. He notes it wasn't adversarial, but certainly not something the Thunder wanted to do.
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) July 25, 2019
During his introductory press conference with the Los Angeles Clippers, George said that he and the Thunder worked together on trade, which is not valid, according to Presti. George submitted a trade request only a few days into free agency while his new teammate, Leonard, persuaded the Clippers to bring in George so that he could join as well.
Sam Presti didn't quite agree with the way Paul George said the trade to the Clippers went down. pic.twitter.com/XjmIcnHNFH
— Dylan Buckingham (@DylanBuckingham) July 25, 2019
The Thunder got Danilo Gallinari and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander along with five future first-round picks in exchange for George. After finding out that George left, Russell Westbrook also wanted to change teams, so Presti sent him to the Houston Rockets for All-Star point guard Chris Paul.
“Houston was the place he wanted to go, and we were able to find a way to accomplish our goals and his,” Presti said. “If we couldn’t accomplish our goals, we wouldn’t have traded him to Houston, but we were able to find a way to communicate through that process to get that to happen. But to answer your question, you sit down, where are we going from here, where are you with things right now, and I think he and the organization came to the same conclusion, that hey, if there’s something that makes sense for everybody, then we’ll look at that for sure. And we were fortunate that it worked out the way it did.”
