The Paul George Invitational, also known as the 2025 NBA Finals, is set.
Thunder vs. Pacers — two teams that wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Playoff P and his westward ambitions. George ultimately got his wish, landing in Los Angeles after asking out of Indiana and then Oklahoma City, and in the wake of his exits, the Thunder and Pacers chartered unique courses in becoming unlikely Finals foes.
How did we get here? Let’s rewind 15 years to draft night 2010.
John Wall, Evan Turner and Derrick Favors were the top-three picks. Edmond Santa Fe’s Ekpe Udoh went sixth. Putnam City’s Xavier Henry went 12th. The Thunder traded up to the 11th pick, which it used to select Kansas big man Cole Aldrich.
The pick before Aldrich? The Pacers drafted Paul George, the forward out of Fresno State. Among the 60 players selected that night, George, now a 76er, is the only one still playing. In a redraft, George would be the easy No. 1 pick.
In 2012, when Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden led the Thunder to the NBA Finals, George was a second-year player on a Pacers team that lost to the Heat in the Eastern Conference semifinals — the Heat team that would then top the Thunder.
George was an All-Star by Year 3. He led the Pacers to back-to-back East finals appearances in 2013 and 2014.
In the summer of 2017, after his seventh season in Indiana, George told the Pacers that he would not re-sign with the team as a free agent in the summer of 2018. That his preference was to sign with the Lakers the following summer.
Less than two weeks later, George was on the move … to Oklahoma City. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was amid summer workouts at Kentucky. Tyrese Haliburton was a rising senior at Oshkosh (Wisconsin) North High School. The ripples of the trade had not yet reached them.
To Indiana, the Thunder sent fourth-year guard Victor Oladipo and center Domantas Sabonis, the 11th pick in the 2016 draft who had just finished his rookie season in OKC. The Thunder, a year earlier, had acquired Oladipo and the pick that became Sabonis from the Magic in exchange for Serge Ibaka.
Thunder general manager Sam Presti had essentially swapped Ibaka for a four-time All-Star in George. One year after Kevin Durant bolted from Bricktown to The Bay, Presti had brought in another star to pair with Russell Westbrook, the reigning MVP.
There was risk in acquiring George, who had one year left on his contract, but if all went according to plan, the reward was far greater. Ideally, George’s arrival would convince Westbrook to re-up with the Thunder, with Westbrook in turn persuading George to do the same. And that’s exactly what happened. A year after the Thunder traded for him, George agreed to a four-year deal with the Thunder, leaving the Lakers hanging.
George was an All-Star in two seasons with the Thunder — both of which ended in disappointing first-round playoff exits. “That’s a bad shot.” George finished third in MVP voting in 2018-19.
Oladipo was a breakout star in Indianapolis. He made third-team All-NBA in 2017-18 and was named the league’s Most Improved Player. He repeated as an All-Star the next season — his two All-Star appearances coinciding with his first two seasons as a Pacer.
Sabonis finished second in Sixth Man of the Year voting in 2018-19, his second season with the Pacers. By 2019-20, Sabonis was an All-Star.
Like the Thunder, the Pacers were bounced in the first round of the playoffs in the first two years post-Paul George trade.
Then came the seismic summer of 2019. George was on the move again — a trade out of Oklahoma City that was just as stunning, maybe more so, than the one that brought him in.
The Thunder, with the leverage of a brewing George-Kawhi Leonard dalliance, received five first-round picks, two pick swaps, Danilo Gallinari and a promising young guard named Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from the Clippers.
Trading for George, and then trading him away, had netted the Thunder a future MVP.
Meanwhile, after parts of five seasons in Indiana, the Pacers flipped Sabonis to the Kings for Haliburton.
For Indiana, George led to Oladipo and Sabonis, and Sabonis to Haliburton.
For OKC, Oladipo and Sabonis led to George, and George to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a pick that produced another All-Star in Jalen Williams and who knows what else to come.
Trading away George — and Sabonis, for that matter — is the throughline that connects Oklahoma City and Indiana.
A line that can be traced from a 2018 trade to the 2025 NBA Finals.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
OKC Thunder vs. Indiana Pacers NBA Finals schedule
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