I still have push notifications on for Paul George’s Instagram account. I should disable it because he’s a former Pacer, but I haven’t yet.
When he posts, I immediately get a notification on my iPhone and if you know me, you know I’ll look right away. I’m one of those who has zero notifications, zero unread text messages, and zero unread emails.
I’m clutter-free. I just can’t.
So Instagram opens and I watched a well-produced highlight package from Paul George’s offseason spent working out at Proactive Sports Performance in Westlake Village, California. They also train Aaron Rodgers, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Von Miller. Great.
My first thought was, “I wonder what Shawn (the Pacers’ sports performance coach) thinks of these type of workouts.” Then … “I wonder what the Thunder think of them.”
Training with purpose and doing the right things are critically important. Is lifting weights in water necessary and helpful, or does it just look cool?
Then I read Paul George’s long caption and I nearly spit out my coffee.
“Didn’t know I was gonna be traded but what happened, happened. Now I’m faced with the same mission to be the best playing along side the best and damn I’m excited about that!”
Okay, sure … he didn’t know for a fact that he would be traded, but it was nearly guaranteed after his agent informed the Pacers that George would not exercise his contract option for the 2018-19 season, a thoughtful move. (One day after he told reporters that he and President Kevin Pritchard shared a similar vision for the future.) Then, word leaking out that George intended to join the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency was detrimental to his trade value.
But still, he was getting dealt. The Pacers had to get something for him. So they traded him to Oklahoma City for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis.
It could be that someone in his camp posted this. But this is Instagram, not Twitter where his posts are centered on business. Instagram is his social media channel of choice where he highlights his latest catch in the pond, his daughter, or vacation. He also often pushes his Nike signature shoe, PG1. As he should.
Also, in fairness, he may have meant that he didn’t know that he was going to be traded when he first began the offseason program, likely in May or early June.
George also admitted in his post, “I knew I wasn’t good enough the past year and wanted to give my team more.”
[Paul George says goodbye, thanks Indiana]
The Oklahoma City Thunder will be one of my top League Pass teams this season, right there with the Celtics, Rockets, and Timberwolves. The Cavaliers and Warriors aren’t included because they are seemingly on national television every night.