Larry Bird says Paul George trade rumors were ‘fake news’
Pacers president Larry Bird might be conducting a bit of damage control weeks after reports swirled about the club trying to gauge Paul George's trade value. Though the four-time All-Star wasn’t dealt, George appeared frustrated hours after last month’s trade deadline, telling reporters he thought he “would be in the loop a little more than that.”
But according to Bird, those reports were nothing but “fake news.” Bird told the Los Angeles Times that he couldn’t remember if his conversation with Lakers president Magic Johnson included George but it certainly wasn’t the impetus of the call.
“I wasn’t motivated to move Paul George at the deadline,” Bird said. “I can’t remember if it was even brought up or not. I don’t think it was. It’s all fake news anyway. You know that. Somebody’s gonna start it and [it] just was a snowball effect. [The phone call] was not about Paul George.”
That call with the Lakers might not have been about George, but the Pacers reportedly were also in talks with the Celtics regarding the two-way superstar.
The real question is if George, whose contract ends next summer, believes Bird's version of events. The 26-year-old denied reports that he’s planning to leave the Pacers and join his hometown Lakers in the summer of 2018.
“That’s what people are going to think,” George said last month. “Of course, I’m from L.A. There are ties, there are connections. But you can’t jump to a conclusion based off that. If that was the case, I wouldn’t have took a long extension here.”
