Russell Westbrook has the simplest pitch of all-time to keep Paul George around.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have started to find their stride a little bit after a sluggish start to the season. Right now they stand at 20-17, and hold the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference, only three and a half games out of the four seed.
We’ve all seen what the Thunder can do when they’re at their best. They blew out Golden State in Oklahoma City, and beat the Houston Rockets on Christmas day, albeit without Chris Paul. Nevertheless that’s two wins against the presumed best two teams in the Western Conference.
Right now the Thunder are in L.A. to take on the Lakers on Wednesday night which means we get to ask Paul George a bunch of Lakers questions. Well, his teammate Russell Westbrook was asked if he needed to make a sales pitch to George. His answer was definitely peak Westbrook.
This is a viable answer for this question. He’s definitely 100 percent here, because there’s not much more you can say to convince someone to stay than winning a title. It’s just like the old saying winning cures everything.
What’s even better about this is that it’s not like he’s guaranteeing their going to win the title. Had Westbrook guaranteed they’d win the title then there’s no backtracking from that. We all know Westbrook’s ultimate goal is to get his team to the Finals. He’s been there once before, but now that he’s running the show it’s on his shoulders to get the franchise back there.
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George on the other hand has never been to the Finals, and has fallen victim to LeBron James’ Finals streak on more than one occasion. George has seemingly fit in nicely with the Thunder averaging 20 points per game, and leading the NBA in steals per game. He hasn’t shot it all that well this year, but he’s started to find his shot as of late.
The running theory when George was traded to OKC was that it was just a stop on his way to the Lakers, and it was a valid one. Now, though, it seems that it isn’t just a forgone conclusions that he jumps ship to L.A. regardless of winning a title this year or not.
All I know is that if the Thunder win the title, and George stays in OKC, we’ll look back on this and say it was the greatest pitch of all time.