Paul George made waves in a recent interview after revealing the surprising reason why he left the Indiana Pacers a few years back. After years of questions, he finally stated that he left the franchise because they refused to team him up with the “top power forward” in the game, who he said wanted to join him in Indiana.
Obviously, the first question that fans wanted answered was, which player was he talking about?
Many thought George was referring to Blake Griffin. However, it appears the star small forward wanted the Pacers to target another much bigger name.
According to Alex Kennedy of HoopsHype, one league source believes that George was referring to Anthony Davis. Of course, he was with the New Orleans Pelicans at that time under a big contract. The Pacers likely would not have been able to afford to acquire him via trade.
A league source believes that George is talking about Anthony Davis, which makes sense since he was widely regarded as the best power forward in the league in the summer of 2017 (when this conversation happened).
Fans in Indiana know that acquiring Davis was never a real possibility. It took the Los Angeles Lakers a ton of talent that the Pacers had nothing close to in order to get a deal done with the Pelicans.
If that was the real reason that George left the Pacers, it’s clear that he was asking the impossible. To get upset about a deal not being able to get done will validate most Indiana fans’ beliefs about the entire situation.
However, it is fun to imagine what a Pacers’ team with George and Davis leading the way could have done. They would absolutely have been top contenders for a championship.
All of that being said, we’ll never know for sure what actually happened between George and the Pacers. Both sides have differing opinions of what happened, but both sides are also currently in a better place after moving on from each other.
