‘He’s a people-pleaser by nature’: New Sixers star Paul George through the eyes of a Clippers beat writer

The 76ers pulled off the NBA’s splashiest free-agency move, luring perennial All-Star forward Paul George away from his hometown Los Angeles Clippers on a max contract. They also added important complementary players — and brought back key members of the 2023-24 team — in hopes of contending for a championship.

As the offseason slows down, The Inquirer has reached out to reporters with insight on the Sixers’ newcomers.

First up is Andrew Greif, who covered George as the former Clippers beat reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

I was and wasn’t surprised. Paul George liked playing close to home in front of his mother and father, had put down roots with his children, and spoke so openly about desiring to retire as a Clipper that it always felt as though his preference was to stay if he felt wanted. Within the front office, one executive once mused to me that George was so all-in as an ambassador for Clippers basketball within L.A. that they wondered if he might hold some type of honorary role with the team well into retirement.

I knew he and the team were not on the same page in negotiations, and I knew the team was planning to hold firm on not wanting to offer the max to both George and Kawhi Leonard. Yet George’s revealing comments since signing with Philadelphia suggested a gulf that would have been almost unimaginable last offseason. Once the team’s early offers were so far apart from his expectation, and remained so for so long, it wasn’t hard to see a breakup coming.

If there was a most persistent criticism of George during his Clippers tenure, it was that his production didn’t fall in line with expectations for one half of an All-Star duo. In Philadelphia, he should thrive because, given the caliber of teammates you mentioned, he won’t have to bring the ball up against pressure (something he has said on his podcast he didn’t always take to) or even have to be the de facto second scorer every night.

George’s game can look impossibly smooth at times, but one area that the Clippers constantly wanted him to improve in was his passing. Turnovers from errant passes, particularly when George was playing the ballhandler in pick-and-rolls, were too frequent for a player of his skill set. I’m interested to watch how his PNR chemistry evolves with Embiid.

» READ MORE: Call him Dr. P: Paul George has a prescription for a healthy Joel Embiid

Some context: George had spent much of the 2023 offseason talking about “legacy.” The repetition caught my attention, and I asked him about it during the preseason last fall. George, and I’m paraphrasing slightly, effectively had done the accounting for his career and believed the toll he’d put on his body hadn’t led to the kind of payoff he imagined. His dissatisfaction with not yet reaching the Finals also stems from wanting to leave something behind for his kids to be proud of, he told me.

I think Paul knows he’s a divisive player among fans, and by winning a title, at least at the time we spoke about his legacy, it was clear he thought winning would be an accomplishment with which no one could argue.

How concerned should the Sixers be about George’s age (34) and injury history — especially on a full four-year max deal — even after a healthy and efficient 2023-24 season?

George’s injury history is why some teams during the 2023 offseason were wary of committing max money toward him, even as they gauged the Clippers’ interest in trading him. For the Sixers, that caution would seem to only be magnified, given Embiid’s uneven availability throughout his career. But, teams also like trading for a third star because it insulates the roster from inevitable attrition. At least, that is the strategy, one that didn’t benefit the Clippers.

How would you describe George as a teammate and locker-room presence? He recently said his reserved personality is similar to Embiid’s, which is a reason they hit it off at All-Star weekends.

Paul is a people-pleaser by his nature, and assimilates to the moods and personalities of the locker room he’s in. In Oklahoma City, he added a bit more of an edge from watching [Russell] Westbrook’s no-holds-barred example. In Los Angeles, next to a reserved Leonard, he said he was happy being the 1B to Kawhi’s 1A — a comment that drew immediate pushback from coach Tyronn Lue — and that approach was why Patrick Beverley and Westbrook were often the loudest voices in a locker room that Lue often called otherwise “quiet.”

Teammates liked having George around, to be sure, but if both he and Embiid are reserved, then the question that might be most interesting about the Sixers this season is the same one that was most interesting about the Clippers for the past five — in moments of crisis, who takes the reins as the team’s leader?