Paul George Sneaky Took Some Shots At The Clippers While Dropping Some Interesting Nuggets About His Next Potential Team

Rocky Widner. Getty Images.

Now that the Finals are over and we've officially entered the NBA offseason, that means it's time to start talking about the one of the most entertaining parts of the NBA schedule: Free agency

If you are a fan of a team that's looking to make a big time splash this summer, the bad news is the 2024 free agent class is mostly dogshit. Don't take my word for it, see for yourself

After Pascal Siakam's max extension, he's now off the board and as you can see, it's slim pickin's. I think we can assume that LeBron isn't going anywhere this summer, either he's picking up that $51M player option or will sign another 1+1 like he always does. Removing him you're left with some decent role players, but the star power certainly isn't there outside of a few guys.

Perhaps that good news for someone like Paul George, who is easily the biggest name and best player available on the market. The Clippers still haven't extended him, and now that we've reached the offseason the noise around his future is only going to get louder

You know the drill!

But Windy speculation is not the point of this blog. While he's certainly informed when it comes to these kinds of things, I think it's more intriguing to put the focus more on what Paul George himself had to say about what he's looking for this summer

Man, how quickly things can change!

It's hard to not think there's some sneaky shots being thrown here by George at the Clippers/Kawhi/Harden which is confusing because since the Clippers traded for Harden not only did it actually turn their season around George also had one of his best individual seasons in years. Did they win the title? No. It was another underachieving season involving an injured Kawhi.

So let's focus on what George says he wants. To me, this is saying "whoever cuts the largest check". Playing the right style of basketball? Hmmm. Who do we think that could mean?

If we're being told that winning a title isn't a factor and it's going to have to be a team with a ton of cap space, the easy answer here is the Sixers right? You can't forget the begging Joel Embiid did on national TV when it came to George

but do the Sixers "play the right style"? Well, I guess that depends on what you think the right style is. When healthy they did have a good offense/defense with an unstoppable offensive force in Embiid, so at least there's that. George won't have to "be the guy" in PHI just like he wasn't with the Clippers, and since Tobias Harris is out there's certainly a positional need for George. Sure it's risky pairing an often-injured George with an often-injured Embiid, but at this point, I'm not sure what else the Sixers can do. Go look at that list of free agents again, it's gross. 

The craziest scenario of all might be a George return to OKC, another team that's on the rise and plays the right way. If titles aren't the concern, what about playing with Pop and Wemby? 

Perhaps this is all just a leverage play to get that extension from Steve Ballmer, something that certainly isn't uncommon for players in George's position. But listening to him in that clip, my guess is he's on the move by this time next month.