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The Los Angeles Clippers looked like the best team in the NBA for an extended stretch after acquiring James Harden this past season, but ultimately they fell short of their goal and lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Dallas Mavericks.
Ironically, superstar Paul George says two of the players they traded for Harden are the two guys whose absences significantly hurt the team.
In a recent episode of his show, Podcast P, George opened up about the Harden trade and said that losing Nic Batum and Robert Covington in the deal hurt the team a lot, saying “We started the year off hot. Everybody was playing well, there was the energy there. It was kinda like the first time of us all being healthy with Russ now.” and added “Then we traded to get James, and it’s not James’ fault of why we struggled, but the lost part of that was we lost RoCo, we lost Nico…Now you grab James, who is super talented offensively, and now myself, Kawhi, we become the dirty guys.”
Paul George says losing Robert Covington and Nicolas Batum really hurt the Clippers:
“We started the year off hot. Everybody was playing well, there was the energy there. It was kinda like the first time of us all being healthy with Russ now. It was the emergence of what it’s… pic.twitter.com/XzTdYkx0J3
— Joey Linn (@joeylinn_) June 19, 2024
Health was eventually the team’s undoing, as Kawhi Leonard got hurt and missed most of the playoff series against the Mavericks, but when healthy this team did look like a legitimate threat to win it all.
Kawhi and PG did a great job fitting in around Harden without forcing him to compromise who he was, and Russell Westbrook looked as good as he ever has in a bench role.
One has to wonder if PG is opening up about this because he knows he is headed elsewhere in free agency.
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