Could it be Magic vs. Bird ... for Paul George?
Paul George wants to stay in Indiana.
But like so many things this time of year, when the phones are ringing off the hook in NBA offices as the trade deadline nears, the situation between the four-time All-Star and his Indiana Pacers is racked with nuance. So when George met with team owner Herb Simon in recent days and told him that the Hoosier state was still the place for him, how he would love nothing more than to eventually go down as the greatest Pacer of them all, it came with one qualifier.
If they can contend for a title.
According to a person with knowledge of the meeting who spoke to USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, that is the crossroads that Pacers president Larry Bird now faces. If the Thursday deadline comes and goes and the Pacers roster remains the same, the pressure rises in a significant way.
George will be a free agent in the summer of 2018, and it’s no secret that the 26-year-old Palmdale, Calif. native would love nothing more than to sign with his hometown Lakers if the future is bleak in Indiana. The fact that the Lakers are in the process of trying to land George right now, with new lead executive Magic Johnson moving fast to fill that superstar hole that Kobe Bryant left behind, only makes these next two days all the more compelling.
Magic & Bird, together again as NBA power brokers, on Day No. 2 of Johnson’s new job. You can’t make this stuff up.
Bird is known to be searching for options that would ease George's concerns, inquiring about players like Philadelphia’s Jahlil Okafor, the Sacramento Kings’ Arron Afflalo, Portland’s Allen Crabbe and Ed Davis. Yet if he can’t make significant moves, and if the Pacers (29-28, sixth in the Eastern Conference) seem destined to tread water while George ponders the notion of heading West, then maybe it's time for Bird to turn the page on the Paul George era.
The George landscape is complicated elsewhere, too, in large part because of his desire to sign with the Lakers if the Pacers experience simply doesn’t pan out. The Boston Celtics, with fellow 80s/90s star Danny Ainge at the front office helm, must ponder factors such as these as they decide the price worth paying. That reality, that enormous risk, exists for all other suitors as well.
George still has dreams of being bigger than Reggie Miller, of giving this franchise its first NBA championship and one day seeing his jersey up in the Bankers Life Fieldhouse rafters. But his gruesome leg break in the summer of 2014 taught him that time waits for no man, that every day on the court is a blessing after he spent more than a year working his way back.
He wants to win a title, and he wants nothing more than to do it Indiana. It’s up to Larry Legend to get these Pacers back in the game now.