Clippers News: Doc Rivers Knew Thunder Were Breaking Up Westbrook-George Tandem

The Los Angeles Clippers are entering the 2019-20 NBA season with high hopes of winning an NBA title after snagging Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Of the two, it was the sudden deal for PG13 that caught most by surprise. No one expected OKC to deal him out with most monitoring the Leonard situation.

Rivers pulled a fast one, landing a couple of star players in one summer. As early as last season, most were expecting Leonard to join the Clippers. This was despite the growing belief that the Toronto Raptors would likely try to convince him to stay. Unfortunately, growing up a Clippers fan and the chance to be coached by Rivers was too good an opportunity to pass up, ESPN reported.

And while that seemed like a certainty, the George deal further bolsters their chances. It turns out the Clippers were listening to things happening around the league and they knew that George was quietly on the block, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"We showed [Leonard] everybody else and he didn’t want to hear it. He just stayed on Paul George, so after the meeting, we sat down and I said, ‘We got to get Paul George. I don’t know how we are going to do it, but we have to do it.’ We did know that Oklahoma City wanted to break their team-up, so that helped, but we didn’t know if we could get him,” said Rivers.

The decision to break up George and Russell Westbrook stem from the disappointing finish of the Thunder in the last NBA playoffs. That loss to the Portland Trail Blazers sent the Thunder re-thinking the future of the franchise and they ended up rebuilding instead. After George, Westbrook would also be traded to the Houston Rockets for Chris Paul in a move that likewise surprised many.

So will the Clippers' duo of Leonard and George immediately produce results? Critics are divided especially since the Western Conference is quite stacked. The Los Angeles Lakers are a major threat, same with the Houston Rockets. The Golden State Warriors, Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets are looking good as well. For the Clips to succeed, they will need the coaching brilliance of Rivers and help from other players to make it all the way to the gold.