Teams like the Warriors can offer Sixers a Paul George exit strategy

The Warriors’ recent acquisition of Jimmy Butler should serve as a reminder that someone might take Paul George either in the offseason or at next year’s deadline.

Golden State is up next as the entire country gets to see the train wreck that is the Sixers on ABC on Saturday night. It will be the first time Jimmy Butler visits Philadelphia as a member of the Warriors. It’s not the first time Butler has visited his former team since departing in the summer of 2019, but Butler’s presence figures to be one of the game’s bigger talking points.

When rumors first surfaced that Butler wasn’t happy in Miami, some rumblings of a possible reunion with the Sixers began to circulate. It never seemed all that serious and now seems kind of comical to think about with how disastrous 2024-25 has been for Philadelphia. However, the Butler saga dragged on in South Beach as the veteran wing was both benched and suspended on a few different occasions by the Heat until he was eventually traded to Golden State at the trade deadline.

For Butler, the change of scenery across the country from Miami to San Francisco seems to have provided a renaissance late in his career. His stats don’t look drastically different so far, but his team is doing a lot more winning. Golden State is 7-1 since acquiring Butler. The Warriors are inching closer towards a top-six seed in the Western Conference. That would allow Golden State’s veteran-laden roster a week off at the end of the regular season while the play-in tournament is going on to perhaps fuel up for one last playoff run. If Thursday’s most recent win for the Warriors in Orlando is any indicator, Steph Curry and company seem to be revitalized.

So, what does all this mean for the Sixers? Well, you might recall Golden State was a rumored destination for Paul George at this past trade deadline. George’s contract is often perceived as an albatross but sometimes it helps to zoom out a bit. Most Sixers fans are understandably frustrated with George and feel that the organization is saddled with him for the majority, if not all, of the four-year contract he signed. That might be the case, but it also might not.

Save for a jarring disparity in field goal percentage, George’s traditional statistics this season are not that much different than the numbers Butler was putting up in Miami this year. George is signed for one more year than Butler is, but the salaries owed to both players per season are not drastically different. For as brutal as it feels George’s season has gone with the Sixers, the consensus opinion around the league might be that George just mentally tapped out. After all, we’re talking about someone who, when the season was basically already lost, decided to announce he’s putting his podcast on hold to lock in. Given George is only one year removed from his ninth All-Star selection, he could respond well with a similar change of scenery to Butler’s. Better yet for Philly, that doesn’t even need to be the consensus opinion too. It only takes one team to bite on George either in the offseason or come next February.

George’s defense has been a redeeming quality this year and while he may not have always been locked in on offense this season, he hasn’t been the nuisance that Butler was in Miami. Once you start thinking about the situations of other fringe contenders in the NBA, you can see a market for George form that might be big enough for the Sixers to move him as early as this offseason.

Memphis is an intriguing potential fit as the Grizzlies have responded after a down 2023-24 and appear to be primed for a high seed in the West yet again. The Grizzlies have a roster full of players in their 20s and might view George’s experience as a positive for their locker room. George, an L.A. native, notoriously said playing for the Clippers was like playing for the “B team.” With LeBron James nearing retirement and the Lakers needing more talent around Luka Doncic, perhaps there’s a deal to be worked out with the Lakers down the line. Atlanta was a team reportedly interested in George at this year’s deadline and could show more interest in the future. Orlando was in the running for George’s services in free agency last summer and is below the first apron. Might the Magic look to add George via trade?

As you can see, this is merely a thought experiment but you’ll notice a lot of the teams I just threw out for George are in NBA purgatory. They’re good enough to get into the playoffs, or at least the play-in tournament, but not at the forefront of a conversation this season involving the league’s top contenders. That’s exactly where Golden State was prior to the Butler trade. It’s a place Sixers fans know all too well but how you get out of it might not be a one-way street. The Sixers opted to bottom out and start The Process. Some of the teams in the middle of the NBA don’t have control of their future first-rounders thus making it difficult to rebuild. Additionally, some teams may view landing George down the line as an opportunity to revitalize his career and would only be able to acquire George in an imperfect situation like George’s current one in Philly.

To bring it back to the Butler trade out of Miami, it should be noted that Miami’s return in the deal was not very impressive and the Heat are no better off today than they were a month ago. In case you’re wondering or forgot, the trade netted the Heat Andrew Wiggins, Kyle Anderson, Davion Mitchell and a protected first-rounder in the complicated five-team trade. Miami’s chief goal in the Butler deal seemed to be to wash its hands of a messy situation. As it pertains to the Sixers and George, there may not be a team in the future as motivated for an aging star as Golden State was at this past deadline. The Warriors have an all-time great in Steph Curry who is nearing the end of the line and they want to maximize him. For this trade to come together, Miami needed to be OK taking a middling return at best and the team on the other end of the trade happened to be in desperation mode with an all-time great and therefore was more willing to take on Butler’s salary.

I’m not sure Daryl Morey, provided he’s still in charge after this season, would accept a similar return for George that Miami got for Butler. Morey doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy that would trade a dollar for four quarters. One could argue Miami traded a dollar for three quarters here too. Morey held out for quite a while with Ben Simmons three years ago and that was a much more dire situation in which Simmons refused to play for the Sixers. Even though things didn’t work out the way the Sixers would have liked with James Harden, I think many would still say Morey played his cards correctly in holding on to Simmons for as long as he did. Given Morey’s style seems to be to rely on stars to get the team into contention, he’s just as likely to rely on George to bounce back next season than he is to trade him.

Of course, whether it is for the remainder of this season, the start of next season, or both, George will simply have to play better — particularly on offense — for any trade scenarios to seriously materialize. But when Butler and the Warriors roll into the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday night, just know that Butler’s situation in Miami wasn’t all that different than George’s situation in Philadelphia and the Heat were able to move Butler. Sixers fans are best suited to root for Butler and the Warriors for the rest of the season. It might be just what the doctor ordered to deliver George a ticket out of Philadelphia.