Paul George Discloses His Reason For Leaving The Pacers And It’s Devastating

Clippers star forward Paul George claims to have had many reasons for leaving the Pacers back in 2017. He recently revealed that there was a marquee player interested in joining forces, but the Pacers refused to pursue it.

“I ain’t gonna say the names because I’mma keep (their) business private, I’mma just say it like this: I had – at the time – the best power forward saying he wanted to come to Indy and team up with me,” George said during Tuesday’s episode of The Players’ Tribune’s Knuckleheads with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles podcast. “(The front office is) like, ‘We’re a mid-major. We’re a small market. We can’t do it, we’re a small market, we can’t afford that.’ I’m like, ‘The best power forward wants to come play here, like, y’all can’t make that work?’ They didn’t wanna do it.”

It is clear now that this was the last straw for George and the main reason for his inevitable departure from Indianapolis. The Pacers reportedly came back at George with some lower caliber targets, but at that point, his mind was already made up.  “Now I’m pissed cause it’s like, ‘What am I doing here?’ You know what I mean? ‘They don’t want to win,'” George said. “I’ve got the best power forward that wants to come play here. Not everybody chooses Indy to come play at. This dude wanted to come play here. They didn’t wanna do it.” Indianapolis did go on to acquire future All-Stars Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis but, oof, this one stings for Pacer fans.

There are several candidates for who George could be alluding to and believe you, me, the people aren’t going to let this one slide. The Twitterverse has already agreed upon the main suspect.

Blake Griffin? https://t.co/9DErzZOHFE

— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) June 23, 2020

If you break it down, Blake Griffin actually makes a lot of sense here. Griffin was traded to Detroit just a season after George left for OKC, so he was clearly willing to play for a smaller market team. Not to mention that there is nobody near the same echelon as a Paul George on the Pistons (unless you count a bum-knee’d Derrick Rose).

While there is a pretty good case for Blake Griffin, there are several other plausible candidates. Anthony Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, Lauri Markkanen, to name a few. Okay, Markkanen was a joke, but you get the picture. It seems highly unlikely now, but he could have even been referring to Giannis, the Greek Freak. Whoever the mystery power forward George is referring to is, this is quite the gut punch for Pacer fans.

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