According to the most recent Lowe Post podcast, the Pacers front office proposed a trade involving Paul George for Kyrie Irving to the Cavaliers more than once this offseason.
The Paul George news is still trickling in, even as August looms large on the NBA calendar. This time, it was Zach Lowe on the Lowe Podcast reporting that Kevin Pritchard offered Paul George for Kyrie Irving more than once this summer before the Cavs organization knew that Irving was seeking a new team.
Irving was obviously not the Cavs player in a million trade rumors after this year’s Finals, so this news came as a bit of a shock.
Here’s a transcript of when Lowe first brought up the idea of the swap:
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Windhorst: I know that around the draft and in the Paul George talks, the Cavs were not willing to make Kyrie Irving available for Paul George
Lowe: Well that’s one thing that we talked about that we can say on this podcast: The Pacers offered Paul George for Kyrie Irving. That’s a thing that happened, according to people that we’ve talked to.
Windhorst: Multiple times
Lowe: yeah
A swap of the two All-Stars never took place, of course. It joins a growing collection of Paul George trades that didn’t happen like this one with the Cavaliers and the Nuggets.
Windhorst went on to speculate on what might have been different had the Cavs front office know about Irving’s displeasure back in June:
"One wonders if, had Kyrie made his request know a month earlier, could that trade have happened? Would [the Cavs] have relented and gone Kyrie for Paul George even with the one year on the contract? What Kyrie’s side is basically putting forth is that “We would have expressed our displeasure, but nobody would meet with us. We couldn’t get an exit meeting. We didn’t know to talk to David Griffin because he was walking out the door and all that.” So it’s lost to history what would have happened if everybody was transparent a month ago."
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Windhorst, as he’s been on previous appearances, was somewhat reluctant to reveal too much on the podcast, for fear that everything he said would appear on “some blog.” You’re welcome, Brian.