Clippers Paul George recognizes he prefers to have a secondary role in order to have best chances to win an NBA title

Now 32 years of age, All-Star Paul George is starting to ponder about his legacy as an NBA player, but also what are his best traits on court, and why putting stardom aside can actually provide a team with better chances to win a championship.

No doubt the Clippers star has achieved a lot during his 784 official games as a professional basketball player. George first won the Most Improved Player of the Year award back in 2013 with Indiana, and from then on he became part of the All-Defensive Team four different times, as he has earned 8 All-Star selections throughout his career.

As he has accomplished lots of individual accolades in the NBA, he is still lacking team prizes. The closest he’s ever been to winning a championship was advancing to the Conference Finals in three opportunities, the first two with the Pacers and the latest with the Los Angeles Clippers, his current squad.

When he first started to look beyond the Indiana borders in 2017, it was purposely to play for a title-contending team. Before that, he felt like most of the team’s responsabilities fell down on him. “Yeah, my early days in Indiana, I was in that phase were you want to be the go-to guy, you want everything to fall one you,” George recalled.

“But then after years of being there, going through injuries, and then seeing how the league was shaping up I was like ‘man, I can’t do this alone’,”, he admitted. “That evolved into like, how can I be of service to a team?”

When he asked for a transfer trade, he didn’t know where he was going to land next. “I ended up with a superstar in Oklahoma. This is obviously a different role for me not having to be ‘the guy’,” he said refering to former Thunder teammate Russell Westbrook.

“I had to be honest with myself, in order for me to win at the highest level I had to, I don’t think I’m that one guy. I had my best career playing alongside Russ in that role,” he remembered, as he achieved career-highs in both points (28) and rebounds (8.2) in 2018.

George consolidated his philosophy playing for the Clippers

After two first-round eliminations in Oklahoma, Paul got traded to Los Angeles in 2019, as he was practically handpicked by Kawhi Leonard to be his right hand in the Clippers squad. This not only meant his role was going to change again, but also that the mindset in his new team would be to build a roster to compete for the championship.

“How can I be of service and add what I do to what he’s doing?”, Paul recognized would become his new philosophy.

During his recent appearance with J.J. Redick’s “The Old Man & The Three”, George was honest about the reasons that led him to change teams in his career, as well as how he understood he needed to adopt a secundary role to grow for a team who wants to win everything.

Watch a segment of the interview in the tweet below:

Paul George on recognizing that in order to give himself the best chance to win he had to take a secondary role. Fascinating insight from an All-NBA player. @Yg_Trece pic.twitter.com/ILWQGwvZyE

— JJ Redick (@jj_redick) March 1, 2023

It takes a special player to realize when something needs to change, so let’s hope George will someday experience his first NBA Finals victory, as well as the Clippers ever first.