Indiana
Paul George says ‘it sucks’ Pacers don’t honor his achievements. Team plans to fix that.
INDIANAPOLIS — After seeing published comments from Paul George lamenting the fact he hasn’t been extensively honored for his contributions to the Indiana Pacers when he’s returned to Gainbridge Fieldhouse with other teams, the Pacers’ front office intends to reach out to George and will look to honor his accomplishments in future returns, a league source told IndyStar.
George most recently returned to Indianapolis with the 76ers on Jan. 18 but did not play in the game due to injury and his presence wasn’t acknowledged either via the public address system or the video boards at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Ky Carlin, a reporter for Sixers Wire on the USA Today Network, asked George about that and the nine-time All-Star and six-time All-NBA pick acknowledged it is a bit of a sore spot for him even though he’s on this third team since he was traded to the Thunder in July of 2017. Carlin also noted George is not featured in the pre-game historical video that includes clips of the Pacers through the decades, but no active players are featured in that video.
“We were joking with the guys, and they were like, you know, ‘Do you still get a tribute video when you go to Indiana?’” George told Carlin. “I was like ‘I’ve never gotten a tribute video since I’ve been going back to Indiana,’ and that was eight years ago. It does, you know, it sucks. I think the way things played out still holds a grudge to them and they don’t realize the great runs we had in the time I was there.”
George was taken by the Pacers out of Fresno State with the No. 10 pick in the 2010 draft and he played his first seven seasons with the franchise, earning four All-Star selections and three third-team All-NBA nods in that span. He’s one of just six Pacers players ever to be named to an All-NBA team and one of just three to be named three times — the others being Jermaine O’Neal and Reggie Miller.
George helped lead the Pacers to the playoffs in six of his seven seasons including back-to-back trips to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2013 and 2014 where they lost in seven and six games respectively to LeBron James’ Miami Heat. The Pacers had missed the playoffs in each of the four seasons before his arrival.
“I came into that situation where Indiana was struggling,” George told Carlin. “They just got over the ‘Malice at the Palace’. … There were some dark clouds covering that Pacers team, and, you know, they weren’t, you know, a force in the East. Obviously, they had good talent with Danny Granger there, but I thought I was a part of that resurgence.”
George, however, requested a trade in June of 2017 when he was heading into the final year of a four-year contract, saying he would not sign an extension and would leave in free agency the following summer if he was not traded. Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard at the time called the request “a gut punch.”
When the league calendar flipped over, Pritchard and the Pacers traded George to the Thunder for center Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo. That deal has worked out well for the Pacers as Sabonis and Oladipo both earned All-Star nods with the Pacers. They eventually traded Sabonis to the Kings in the deal that brought All-Star Tyrese Haliburton to the Pacers and they sent Oladipo to the Rockets in a four-team deal that brought them Caris LeVert, who they eventually traded to the Cavaliers for the draft picks they used to take guards Andrew Nembhard and Ben Sheppard.
Since the deal, George played two seasons for the Thunder and five seasons for the Clippers before joining the 76ers this summer. He’s earned five more All-Star trips, three more All-NBA nods and made more than $300 million on his past two contracts before signing a four-year deal worth approximately $211 million with the 76ers this offseason.
George was acknowledged when he returned to Gainbridge Fieldhouse with the Thunder for the first time, but it was brief. Not every player who returns to his old team is greeted by bells and whistles, but some particularly accomplished players are often greeted with extensive tributes. The Raptors showed an extensive tribute video on their videoboards when Pascal Siakam returned to Toronto for the first time after he was acquired by the Pacers last January.
George might see something closer to that the next time he returns to Gainbridge Fieldhouse, but the 76ers do not return to Indianapolis this season.