George admits he could've handled Pacers exit better

Paul George will play his first game against the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday night, and while he won't be performing in front of his former home fans, the meeting gave George a chance to reflect on his time in Indiana, and the trade request that ended his tenure this past summer.

He doesn't regret his decision, but George, now a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder, feels bad about the position he put the Pacers in; namely, how he nuked their leverage by waiting to reveal his intention to leave in free agency until he had just one year left on his contract.

"First and foremost, I want to give thanks to Indiana as a state, for embracing me and my family for seven years of being there. They taught me so much." George told Clifton Brown of the Indy Star.

"Obviously, I'm human. Things could have been done a lot better. The process, that whole ordeal could have been done a lot better. I'll share some of that responsibility. But at the end of the day, I did what was best for myself, what was best for my family. I had to move on. It was the right decision for myself. I'm happy. I'm happy with what the results were."

Before George's trade request, Pacers president Kevin Pritchard - who'd just stepped into that role following Larry Bird's resignation - felt like he and George were on the same page regarding the All-Star swingman's future in Indiana. Pritchard was blindsided by the trade request, calling it a "gut punch."

With their options effectively limited to trading George for an underwhelming return or losing him for nothing in 2018, the Pacers flipped him to the Thunder for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis (a widely panned deal that looks a bit better now than it did a couple weeks ago, as both guys have thrived so far in Indiana).

George insists he was initially open to staying with the Pacers, but decided he needed to ask out after realizing that he wasn't going to have enough help from the rest of the roster.

"With him (Pritchard) stepping into a new position, I wanted to see what talent was going to be brought in," George told Brown. "I wanted some assurances of what the team was going to look like. But then it got to the point where it was on my shoulders, with the guys that were being brought in. I didn't want that burden, not knowing the certainty of how long I was going to be there. I didn't want to put anyone in a position where, 'Well, Paul steered them one way, and then he left.' So, I said, 'I'll be up front, I'll put everything on the table, tell them at the end of my contract, I plan to not re-sign.'"

George will play in Indiana as a visiting player for the first time on Dec. 13.