Doc Rivers Gets Honest About Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Trade
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has become a superstar with the Oklahoma City Thunder. An All-NBA First Team selection last season, Gilgeous-Alexander is an early MVP candidate this season. Each leap Gilgeous-Alexander takes, more people revisit the trade that sent him from the LA Clippers to Oklahoma City for Paul George.
During a recent appearance on The Bill Simmons podcast, former Clippers head coach Doc Rivers got honest about the trade, and revealed he told Kawhi Leonard that Gilgeous-Alexander would be a star.
"I did say, 'Man, can we give them somebody else?'" Rivers said. "'We cannot give up Shai.' I even told Kawhi when he was saying, 'I need another guy,' and Kawhi will verify, I kept saying, 'You know, Kawhi - Shai is gonna be a star.'"
Rivers said Leonard asked him how long it would take for Gilgeous-Alexander to become a star. While that's a difficult question to answer even with the benefit of hindsight - given how different the situation in LA would have been than the situation in OKC, it has not taken Gilgeous-Alexander long to establish himself as one of the best players in the NBA.
"I don't believe in my heart that Kawhi would have gone [to the Lakers]," Rivers said. "I think he was coming to us all along, but he had all the cards... I was the only house that he came to. He didn't go to anybody's house in Toronto. He met the Lakers in a hotel room, wouldn't even go to their facility. Yet he came to my house. And I kept saying, 'He's telling us what he's doing. He's telling us we have him.' But he had all the leverage and we had to bite."
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