{"id":123558,"date":"2025-06-25T12:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/123558\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T12:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:57:11","slug":"the-worst-trade-of-all-time-paul-george-to-the-clippers-okc-thunder-got-sga-and-massive-package","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/123558\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worst Trade Of All Time: Paul George To The Clippers, OKC Thunder Got SGA And Massive Package"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Worst Trade Of All Time: Paul George To The Clippers, OKC Thunder Got SGA And Massive Package <\/a> originally appeared on Fadeaway World<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> celebrate their first NBA championship in franchise history, a trade made six years ago has come full circle, and it has gone down as the most lopsided trade in basketball history.<\/p>\n

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In July 2019, the Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> sent a record-breaking haul to the Thunder in exchange for Paul George. The price? Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>, Danilo Gallinari, five first-round draft picks, and two first-round pick swaps. On paper, it was a win-now gamble to pair George with Kawhi Leonard<\/a> in LA. In reality, it became a generational jackpot for OKC.<\/p>\n

And now, after a title run led by MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the final tally from the trade looks like this:<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City Thunder Receive: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari, Jalen Williams, Tre Mann, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Dillon Jones, 2025 first-round pick swap, 2026 first-round pick\u00a0<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Clippers Receive: Paul George\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2019, the trade felt justifiable. George was coming off a career-best season with the Thunder, averaging 28.0 points, 8.2 rebounds, 4.1 assists, and 2.2 steals per game while shooting 38.6% from three.<\/p>\n

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He was First-Team All-NBA, First-Team All-Defense, and finished third in both MVP and Defensive Player of the Year voting. Pairing that version of PG with Kawhi Leonard seemed like the perfect move to form a title favorite.<\/p>\n

But the results couldn\u2019t have been more different.<\/p>\n

The Clippers reached just one Western Conference Finals in the six seasons since, never made the NBA Finals, and were plagued by injuries, underachievement, and crushing playoff exits.<\/p>\n

After years of pushing deep into the luxury tax and failing to break through, LA let Paul George walk in the 2024 offseason to the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a>, without any compensation.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, the Thunder flipped that same deal into a championship foundation.<\/p>\n

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander blossomed into a bona fide superstar and claimed the 2025 MVP and Finals MVP honors. Jalen Williams<\/a>, acquired through one of the picks from the deal, has turned into an elite two-way wing and future All-Star.<\/p>\n

Other assets like Dillon Jones have provided rotation depth, and the Thunder still own a 2025 pick swap and a 2026 first-rounder from the deal.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t just a good trade, it was a franchise-altering heist.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse for the Clippers, they sacrificed their future for a championship window that never opened.<\/p>\n

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Even with Kawhi Leonard and James Harden<\/a> still on the roster, the team looks like it’s running on fumes, their flexibility gutted and their future mortgaged, all for a player who never brought them to the mountaintop.<\/p>\n

As Oklahoma City hoists the trophy and looks poised to dominate for years to come, the Paul George trade stands as a cautionary tale. Win-now moves can backfire catastrophically. The Clippers gave away the keys to their future. The Thunder? They turned those keys into a golden dynasty.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, it\u2019s not just the worst trade of the modern era; it might be the worst in NBA history.<\/p>\n

Related: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: I’m The Best Player In The World<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Fadeaway World<\/a> on Jun 24, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Worst Trade Of All Time: Paul George To The Clippers, OKC Thunder Got SGA And Massive Package…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,4281,1256,4959,364,560,529,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,475,179,526,207,209,6358],"class_list":{"0":"post-123558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-danilo-gallinari","11":"tag-dillon-jones","12":"tag-jaime-jaquez-jr","13":"tag-jalen-williams","14":"tag-james-harden","15":"tag-kawhi-leonard","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-la-clippers","18":"tag-laclippers","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-losangelesclippers","23":"tag-nba","24":"tag-oklahoma-city","25":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","26":"tag-paul-george","27":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","28":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","29":"tag-tre-mann"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114744121565194927","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}