Dive into the 2025 NBA Finals, and you’ll see that Oklahoma City and Indiana have a lot in common: Both are led by dynamic point guards, both prefer an athletic and uptempo style, and both rely on pressure defense and steals to fuel easy transition points…
And both are in the NBA Finals thanks to Paul George.
Or, more specifically, what they got back when trading Paul George away. While George watches the NBA Finals from the same couch where he watched the entire playoffs (his 76ers didn’t even make the play-in), here is how both of these teams used trading George away to set up the foundation of their Finals teams.
INDIANA PACERS
There was a time when Paul George seemed poised to become a Pacers icon. Drafted No. 10 by Indiana in 2010, he spent seven seasons with the team, being voted an All-Star four times and twice leading the team to the Eastern Conference Finals. However, as George was nearing the final year of his second contract, he informed the Pacers that he would not re-sign there, forcing the team to trade a fan favorite or risk losing him for nothing.
In the summer of 2017, the Pacers traded George to the Thunder for Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo, a duo that started out solidly in Indiana, making the playoffs five straight seasons (although they were never a threat to contend). After that five-year run, things started to fall apart, and the Pacers missed the playoffs entirely in back-to-back years.
That’s when Pacers GM Kevin Pritchard traded Sabonis to the Sacramento Kings for a package where Tyrese Haliburton was the centerpiece coming back (the Kings were willing to move on from Haliburton because they thought De’Aaron Fox was their future and they wanted a center to pair with him — and the Sabonis/Fox pairing did give Kings fans their only trip to the postseason in the past 19 years).
Ultimately, it is the trade of George that brings Haliburton to Indiana, and with that the Pacers had the foundation needed to build an entertaining team that has returned the franchise to the NBA Finals.
Oklahoma City Thunder
George didn’t want to be traded from Indiana to OKC, it was no secret around the league that he wanted to end up in Los Angeles. However, after an All-Star season in Bricktown, George decided to re-sign with the Thunder. Even though a return home to Southern California was always at the top of his wish list.
A year later, in the summer of 2019, Kawhi Leonard was leaving Toronto (where he had just won a title) to go to the Los Angeles Clippers, but leveraged L.A. and told them to land him, they also had to get another star — Paul George. The Clippers talked to the Thunder and ultimately paid a steep price to get George:
• Shai Gilgeous Alexander
• Danilo Gallinari
• A 2021 first-round pick that became Tre Mann
• A 2022 first-round pick that became Jalen Williams
• A 2024 first-round pick that became Dillon Jones
• A 2025 first-round pick swap that has the Thunder picking 24th this season
Then Clippers coach Doc Rivers was quick to say — and continued to say — that he didn’t really want to give up Gilgeous-Alexander, although even he didn’t think SGA would evolve into an MVP-level player. For the Clippers, it was a trade that proved star players were willing to come to them, something that mattered in the Los Angeles market but didn’t pan out on the court as they hoped.
For Oklahoma City, it ended up being a haul that may well win the Thunder a title with four more wins.
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