Former Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers made an appearance on the latest episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, where he revealed he had reservations over trading Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for Paul George in 2019.
“My reaction was we’re getting Kawhi (Leonard) and Paul George,” Rivers said. “(I) was happy. Having said that, I did bring it up and I did say, ‘Man, can we give them somebody else? We cannot give up Shai.’ I even told Kawhi when he was saying like, ‘I need another guy.’ and Kawhi will verify, I kept saying, ‘You know Kawhi, Shai is gonna be a star.'”
Kawhi Leonard, however, wondered how long that would take and Rivers did not have an answer to that question. Simmons suggested that the Clippers should have tried to convince Leonard to play alongside Shai and if it wasn’t working, then they could have just traded for George later.
Rivers acknowledges that would have been the best way forward, but the Clippers weren’t willing to take the risk of Leonard going to the Los Angeles Lakers.
“It would have been interesting if we had played the game with Kawhi,” Rivers stated. “Kawhi was basically saying if you don’t get A he’s gonna go to B… But we couldn’t lose to the Lakers. We could not let them get him.”
Rivers believes, though, that they should have done it, as he thinks Kawhi was never going to the Lakers. The 62-year-old revealed that the only house that Leonard visited during free agency back then was his.
“I was the only house that he came to,” Rivers added. “He didn’t go to anybody’s house in Toronto. He met the Lakers in a hotel room, didn’t even go to their facility, yet he came to my house, right? And I kept saying, ‘He’s telling us what he’s doing. He’s telling us we have him.’ But he had all the leverage and we had to bite, for sure.”
From today’s BS Pod: Here’s Doc Rivers on the Clippers trading SGA in 2019’s Paul George trade (and whether it had to happen at all) — some Kawhi stuff I never heard buried in here. pic.twitter.com/fMheLDs4RE
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) December 12, 2023
Ultimately, Leonard had all the leverage, and the Clippers’ fear about him ending up on the Lakers meant he managed to twist their arm into making that blockbuster trade for George. We’ll never know for sure what might have happened had they stood their ground back then.
Lou Williams Revealed Clippers Players Were Heartbroken When Gilgeous-Alexander Was Traded
While Rivers admitted he didn’t think Gilgeous-Alexander would become the player he is today, it appears that wasn’t the case for everyone in the building. Lou Williams was on the team at that time and he stated the players knew he would turn out to be this good. Williams also revealed that Clippers players were heartbroken when Shai was traded for Paul George.
“We were heartbroken when he got traded. Absolutely, we were crushed,” Williams said on Run It Back. “Even though it was for PG. We knew who PG was, but we had spent so much time and energy just being instrumental in his career and his development. Just making sure he’s getting extra shots. He was so open to information, so open to learning, and wanted to be great. We knew he was going to be one of those players.”
If they did indeed see this coming then kudos to them. Gilgeous-Alexander is currently averaging 30.4 points, 5.5 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 2.8 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game, and has led the Thunder to a 15-7 start to this 2023-24 season. He is one of the best players in the NBA and OKC has a bright future thanks to him.
What would have eased the blow of trading him away would have been if the Clippers had won a title with George, but they obviously haven’t. Time is running out for this iteration of the team as well and if they do end up empty-handed, this will be looked back upon as a pretty bad trade, whether that’s fair or not.
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