LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 10, 2020

Paul George

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Welcome, everybody. This is our first Zoom media availability from Orlando. We have Paul George with us.

Q. Can you describe what the travel experience was like, kind of what your mindset is as you get to Orlando.

PAUL GEORGE: Traveling experience was the same as any other, with the obvious cautionary stuff of what's been going on. The travel situation was very similar.

As far as the mindset, we're here, we're committed. Let's put everything into it, put our best foot forward to go home with the hardware. I think that's what every team has ultimately committed to. It don't fall short with us.

Q. Are you going to wear anything on your jersey other than your name? And then how excited are you to go fishing when you can do that?

PAUL GEORGE: Yeah, I will wear something to kind of tie into what's been going on on the back of my jersey. That will be a reveal at the time.

But, yeah, I am excited to get on these lakes. I'm excited to just really take advantage of all the amenities here: golfing, fishing, players lounge. We got quite a few things here to keep us busy.

I'm just looking forward to the experience, to come out on top hopefully in this.

Q. Do you have a barber? You got clippers? What are you doing about that?

PAUL GEORGE: We got barbers here apparently. I'm going to give it a week to see how everybody else's cut is looking. Test these barbers here. As of now I'm growing it out. We'll see how good these barbers are here.

Q. What can you take away from the regular season that you plan on bringing into this restart? Team chemistry? Overall team balance? Your game?

PAUL GEORGE: I think a lot. I think we finished where we finished. We were playing well. I think honestly since this, especially with this team, it gave us a lot of time to heal up, a lot of time to kind of just get our bodies back under us.

I felt our relationships within the team grew even more because everyone was contacting each other, everybody was staying in touch, making sure we was pushing each other to stay ready.

I think our communication, I think our chemistry has grown a lot. So, you know, I think because of that, because of the halt in the season, it really benefited for us.

Q. What is it like being here with your teammates practicing in person again? What is that like after so much isolation?

PAUL GEORGE: It will be great. I mean, this is our first time being together. We haven't practiced yet. But, I mean, it's just great to be around the whole group at once. We've been waiting for this moment for a long time.

I mean, it just feels good. Group of great guys. Again, we just want to pick up where we left off at.

Q. You have a lot of incentive to get going again because of the title aspirations you have. Did you have any reservations based on George Floyd, the social justice? There's a lot of talk about not wanting to divert the spotlight. Did you have any reservation about playing or were you all in?

PAUL GEORGE: It was mixed emotions. It was a rollercoaster of whether we should play or not. I think ultimately as young African Americans we have an unbelievable opportunity to use our voices.

I don't necessarily think it's taking away by starting the league. I don't think it's taking away of what's the important issues in our world. I think we can still address those more so than we've done before with our platforms.

I mean, I think it's, again, another unbelievable opportunity. Spotlight is on us. We're opening back up the sports world. With that alone we should have more than enough of an opportunity to get our message and our points across.

Q. How was the hiatus for you personally health-wise? How much basketball were you able to shoot and get done? How do you think the Clippers' title aspirations were impacted by the hiatus? How do you feel about where you are coming back out of the hiatus?

PAUL GEORGE: I stayed in great shape. I had an unbelievable machine that I partnered with Tonal. Unbelievable machine that kept me in shape, kept my body in the best form that I can be right now. So huge, huge shout out to Tonal. Unbelievable product.

For this team, man, I think our aspirations, again, this time off has given us what we needed. We had some guys that was banged up, nagging injuries. The more time gave us more time for us to aid those injuries and to get back to 100.

This team has been faring well with the limited amount of practice time that we've been given already. That doesn't really hurt us. That didn't really bother us in the regular season. I don't think that time off is going to bother us now.

Again, only thing that it helped with was healing our bodies and just getting us physically ready for this last stretch.

Q. I think it was a couple weeks ago when you were saying the shoulder is finally being able to get out of that rehab phase. How important was it for you to have that time to fully heal and have the confidence in it again?

PAUL GEORGE: Yeah, honestly this whole season, up until when I spoke about my shoulder feeling good again. Really I had some insecurities to start the season off. I had insecurities throughout the season just because I wasn't all the way 100. Shoulder didn't feel back to 100.

Everything was kind of waiting and hoping, believing in the doctors that everything they were telling me was going to come into this moment now where I feel great, no shoulder issues.

The whole season, all the way up until maybe a month or two ago, I had to always do shoulder rehab stuff, warming the shoulder up. Just so much went into stuff I had to do before I actually took a foot on the floor. Now I feel great again.

I feel great going on the court, shooting, doing regular things. Just confident in that, feeling back to myself again.

Q. The league that you're in has a 60-plus year of advocacy and activism, whether players sitting out games because hotels were segregated, or protesting. What do you think it is about this league's DNA has guys up for these moments? Specifically over the last 10 years it feels like it's gone to a new level. Why do you think that's been?

PAUL GEORGE: I mean, I think, A, you have tremendous leaders in our league in LeBron, Dwyane Wade, CP, Carmelo. We got unbelievable leaders that notice they have a platform. They're educated in politics, and they're using their platform to get points across.

I think it's only growing. I think those core guys have kind of opened that up, especially these conversations that we are having, that we're comfortable having. For a long time guys were just stuck on, Hey, we play ball and that's it, I don't want to get into that lane and talk politics because that's not what we do.

I think those four guys that I named has made it comfortable for guys to step out and give their takes on politics. The league, too, the partnership with the league to have our backs on being comfortable with doing that.

All collectively it is just great from players stepping up and speaking out to the NBA backing up those players. It's making for a great partnership between the two.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, P. Have a good practice.

PAUL GEORGE: Appreciate it. Thank you, guys.