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OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 24, 2018

Paul George

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Q. Paul, you made a lot of people in Oklahoma happy this summer, deciding to stay. Can you take us back to the process of exactly when it started formulating in your mind, hey, this is a place I might want to stay, a place I'm going to stay, just how that whole process went during the season and after the season?
PAUL GEORGE: I think during the season, to start the season off, I was just open, very open about the situation, and in order for me to do that, I had to -- for me to give everything I had and for me to be committed, I had to be open about coming here, otherwise I would have been not giving the team every bit of effort or -- it just would have been something that I was holding back. You know, I just told myself to start the process off, just give this team everything I have and see what happens. Obviously I've developed some good relationships with Russ, with Steven, with Dre, with Coach Donovan, Sam Presti, Klay. I just developed these really good relationships here, almost feeling like I've been here for a while. And then just over the course of the whole season, it just steamrolled, just got better and better, and here I am.

Q. What sense, if any, have you gotten of what it meant to this place for you -- you're an LA guy, for you to choose to stay here. What sense have you gotten just what it means to the community?
PAUL GEORGE: Well, I think me starting off in a small market helped with feeling what small markets bring as far as a community standpoint. It was a great start to be in Indy for that feeling.

And then again, the city being behind this team, the team being behind the community, it was just hand in hand, and then just being a part of this team, it just felt right.

Q. I'm curious, as a player, what's it like when media and fans kind of hinge on words that players say when they're going through -- pretty much going into their free agency, like last year you said year one a handful of teams, and it seemed like everybody was trying to read into that. What is it like from your end?
PAUL GEORGE: I mean, at the end of the day, it's our decision. It can be frustrating when -- at the end of the day, we're the only ones that know what it feels like or what decision we ultimately want to make. But then you say one thing, and one person put this story out, and now everybody is taking to it. When it came to my whole process, of course I'm going to be split. That's part of life, being split between wanting to play back home or playing in Oklahoma.

You say one thing, I'm going to make this person mad. Say something else, I'm going to make these people mad. So at the end of the day, we've got to be happy with who we are and we've got to be happy with the decision we're going to make because at the end of the day, it's only going to affect us, not the mass. It was frustrating, but at the end of the day, it's what our job is -- it's what we've got to deal with.

Q. To really play off that question, do you feel like for the first time in a few years you're not really necessarily questioning your future, you don't have people kind of around you just waiting for something to slip? Do you feel like you can just come out and enjoy the game of basketball more than maybe you have been able to for a while?
PAUL GEORGE: Yeah, I think for the past two or three years, there's always been speculations or people deciding what my future should be. I know where I'm at and the world knows where I'm at. So yeah, in a sense I can go back to just playing ball and enjoying the game.

Q. A message in the exit interviews last year and this year was about the team being more consistent and talked about building good habits instead of like the sub-.500 teams. What do you see as being kind of a solution for that?
PAUL GEORGE: Well, I think it just goes with us being together for year two now. You're going to have those nights where we're going to show how special and how brilliant we are of a team when we play against teams that we need to be locked in on. Now, are we going to see the chemistry and the consistency from us being together for year two is now being able to do that against the sub-.500 teams. I just think we worked through a lot in one year, and people expected us to be a lot further along. But honestly, that's the reason why I'm here for year two. I knew it wasn't going to be something that happened in one year being with this group. You've got to build certain habits, and that's the habits we're hoping that we build is that consistency.

Q. Everyone saw that video of the party at Russ's house over the summer when you made that decision. What was the feeling like when you --
PAUL GEORGE: Russ got a new house?

Q. Yeah, when you let it be known that you were coming back and going to be here for a while.
PAUL GEORGE: What was the party like? Who was there? Who was there at that party? Anybody in here was at that party?

Q. What was it like?
PAUL GEORGE: You've got to ask them. You've got to ask everybody that was at that party. The party was amazing. You missed out if you weren't at that party.

Q. You became an advocate for Jerami Grant during the season. What do you see from him and what was important to you about him?
PAUL GEORGE: J.G. is one of those special players I think that you need on a team to make a team special. Every team needs that one guy that can do a little bit of everything, and J.G. is that guy. You can plug J.G. in at any spot, and he's going to come out with some special plays for us. It's great for us to be able to play fast and play quick, defensively to be able to just fly across the whole court and protect the basket as well as run the floor and playing the transition game. He's a special, special kind of player, and I definitely was vouching and was pulling for him to come back here.

Q. Was there anything surprising in the way things played out with Carmelo to you?
PAUL GEORGE: No, it played out how it was supposed to, I guess. We miss Melo here as a teammate, as a brother, but if something doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's nothing that he did, it's nothing that the organization did, nothing that the coaches did. If something doesn't work, it just doesn't work, and that's fine. We've got to be able to move on from that, and he's in a better situation for him, and we've got to move on and get prepared as a team.

Q. Kawhi Leonard is coming up on a similar situation this season as you had last season. Has he reached out to you or is there anything you can offer to him as he goes through this process this year?
PAUL GEORGE: Actually me and Kawhi are pretty close. Actually during the summer we hung out and kind of talked and got together a little bit. And we did talk a little bit on that. At the end of the day, just telling him to just be open. We're both Southern Cal guys, and we both wanted to come home and play home, play for the city. But obviously my situation came up and I was happy with it. Just told him to be open about it, be open about the situation and just give wherever he goes -- at that time we didn't know where he was going. I told him just give wherever you're going, give them your everything, and decide from there.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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