Dan Gilbert doesn’t think the Pacers came out on top when they sent All-Star forward Paul George to OKC.
The Cleveland Cavaliers tried hard but came up short in their effort to land PG13, and their owner thinks “Indiana could’ve done better than it did.”
Gilbert remains upset at not being able to pull off the blockbuster trade himself.
When I spoke to Dan Gilbert at Summer League, he asked me several times why Indiana would take the OKC deal. Clearly still bothering him. https://t.co/C13rgi0izh
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) July 26, 2017
Per Cleveland.com:
“I will say that Indiana could’ve done better than it did,” owner Dan Gilbert said during Wednesday’s wide-ranging press conference to introduce Koby Altman as new general manager.
Instead of agreeing to one of the many reported offers for George — from the Cavaliers and other teams — Indiana accepted an oft-criticized package involving Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis.
According to an ESPN report, the Cavs-centric deal would have sent George to Cleveland, with Kevin Love going to Denver and the Nuggets giving Indiana Gary Harris and other pieces. But Pacers general manager and president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard wasn’t satisfied, backed out of the swap and eventually sent George to Oklahoma City.
“I can’t tell you how important it is to have these kinds of relationships around the league,” Gilbert said. “What’s a little bit surprising, I’ve been doing it 12 years now as an owner I guess, but how many deals in the league actually get done because there’s relationships between the front office of our franchise and another one. Because sometimes there will be a trade or something that happens and we’ll say did we even get an at-bat? Did we even get to talk to them? It’s not like you can say let me go out to some auction site and see if there’s any NBA teams that can get better deals. A lot of this is relationship driven and what we have here is one of the best relationship guys in the league. I think you can feel that and see that and I think you will see a bunch of that.”
