Paul George Steers Clear of Clippers Controversy With Pragmatic Comment on Media Day

On Sept. 2, the NBA handed the Clippers the harshest cap-circumvention penalty in league history. Five first-round picks, a $30 million fine, and a year-long ban for Steve Ballmer over deals tied to Kawhi Leonard. Paul George was already in Boston by then.

On Celtics media day, reporters asked him about it. He declined.

“Respectfully, that situation, I’m no longer there,” George said. Kawhi, he added, is “someone I still got a ton of respect for.” They “done some great things on the court together” and “talked a little bit throughout the summer.” Then he shut the door: “That’s his situation that he had to manage.”

What he would talk about was the partnership those Clippers years actually taught him. Playing off Leonard showed him “it doesn’t have to be one guy has to carry the whole load.” Their games “kind of complemented one another.” It did not have to be “a Paul show or a Kawhi show.”

Paul George applied that lesson immediately. “Obviously JT is the guy. I’m there to support him in all facets.” George said he has always prided himself on “wearing whatever hat that I needed to while still producing at a high level.”

He called Boston “a similar situation” and said the Leonard years “helped prep me for a moment like this,” next to “a young superstar” with “a different lens on him.” His job, as he put it: “I’m only here to try to make that job easy for him.”

Boston acquired Paul George from Philadelphia in the trade that sent Jaylen Brown the other way. Tatum is obviously the franchise star. George is the veteran wing who has already lived the two-star experiment and is volunteering to be the second man.

The league found that the Clippers had violated salary cap rules by funneling money to Leonard through no-show endorsement deals. Steve Ballmer issued an apology, accepting the NBA's punishment for salary cap circumvention.

They suspended Ballmer for a full year and handed Frank a six-month suspension. Business operations president Gillian Zucker also received a one-year unpaid suspension.

It cleared the road as, according to ESPN's Shams Charania, the Clippers and Raptors then agreed to complete the blockbuster trade sending Leonard to Toronto. The deal had originally been struck on June 30, then paused for more than two months while the NBA investigated the Clippers over Leonard's compensation arrangements.

The Clippers named lawyer John Gibson interim CEO and governor. Gibson also made a promise of institutional reform, acknowledging the fallout from the league's cap-circumvention findings. "We are conducting a thoughtful and comprehensive review of both basketball and business operations to ensure every decision supports a winning culture," he said, later adding a pledge to "strengthen our culture of compliance" as part of the path forward.