Thunder had to make the Paul George trade

Afew hours before the fiscal year ended, the Pacers traded Paul George to the Thunder for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis. Celebration ensued in a great American city, despair engulfed the other end of the Heartland and NBA intelligentsia hailed the trade as Grand Theft Basketball.

ESPN’s Zach Lowe: “Paul George is a perfect second star for Russ (Westbrook). Elite defender, spot-up

threat off the ball, best as secondary ball-handler.”

TNT’s David Aldridge: “Very little surprises me after all these years. This is an absolute shocker. Paul George for Oladipo and Sabonis? No disrespect, but...wow.”

Bleacher Report’s Sean Highkin: “Bulls might be off the hook for their (Jimmy) Butler return. What a brutal trade for Indy, even if I think Sabonis will be good.”

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst: “What OKC gave up for George (no picks) an indication of weakness of offers to Indiana. And how afraid teams are that PG will walk next year.”

That was then. This is now. The Thunder is 12-14 and looks more lost than Cosmo Kramer in a parking garage. The Pacers are 16-11 and only two games out of third place in the NBA East.

George has been everything the Thunder hoped — demon on defense, 41 percent 3-point shooter — but the chemistry with Westbrook (and Carmelo Anthony, acquired in another drop-the-confetti trade) has been meager. For the Pacers, Oladipo and Sabonis have been much more than anyone saw coming.

Sabonis, in his second NBA season, has become an Indiana cornerstone, averaging 12.1 points and 8.5 rebounds per game. His per-36 minutes totals (17.7 points, 12.5 rebounds) are as impressive as Carmelo’s (19.7, 7.0), and Sabonis is shooting 14 percentage points higher — 54.4 percent to 40.4 percent.

And Oladipo has turned into an all-star, if not an MVP candidate, averaging 24.5 points a game and shooting 44.4 percent from 3-point range.

Considering Oladipo is in the first season of a four-year, $84 million contract, and Sabonis is on the second season of his four-year rookie deal, and George can be a free agent next summer and was thought to be headed to the Lakers even had the Thunder experiment gone great guns, this is looking like a one-sided trade, all right. Just the other way.

But as this trade returns to the spotlight Wednesday night, when George makes his Indianapolis whistlestop, we have to remember this. If this trade indeed goes riverside, if it reverses what was first thought and proves to be an Indiana bonanza, it must remain above criticism.

It’s still a trade the Thunder had to make.

The chance to pair an in-hisprime superstar with Westbrook, even if it came with the risk of losing George after one season, was a deal Sam Presti could not pass up.

Sure, it now looks like the Thunder might have had a superstar in its midst with Oladipo. I was a big Oladipo fan when he was traded to OKC and I was a big Oladipo fan when he was traded from OKC, despite his abysmal playoff series against the Rockets. Heck, I was one of the few who pulled punches when the trade was announced June 30.

Oladipo and Sabonis were “no small price” for George, I wrote, “considering they were a big chunk of the Thunder future. The Thunder landed short-term boom for possible long-term bust.”

Then I felt sheepish because every NBA writer on both sides of the Pecos hailed the trade as a great train robbery. Now all of us are wet, because the Thunder so far has been a short-time bust, giving George absolutely no reason to considering staying in Oklahoma City past this season.

But still, the trade had to be made. The Westbrook-Oladipo pairing did not blossom. Some say Oladipo wasn’t in shape. Some say he was shackled by Westbrook’s ball dominance. Probably both theories are partly true.

Whatever the case, Westbrook and Oladipo didn’t mesh, and even if Oladipo keeps up his incredible play, he’s not Paul George. PG13 is a dominant player on both sides of the ball. He’s not Kevin Durant, but he’s as reasonable a facsimile as the league has.

The Thunder came oh so close to NBA eminence when Durant and Westbrook rode the prairie together. With the clock ticking on Westbrook’s prime— he turned 29 in November — a slow build to another title run seemed unlikely. The Thunder needed to strike while Westbrook still has his jetpack.

Striking with George, and eventually Carmelo, too, was the proper play.

And don’t forget, Westbrook in September signed on for five more years, which the Thunder brass always believed was going to happen, but the George trade had to help move Westbrook along. That alone might have made the Pacers trade worthwhile.

Unless the Thunder snaps out of its season-long slumber — which is looking less likely by the day — then this trade indeed was brutal, but for the Thunder and not the Pacers. Yet even then, it had to be made. The Thunder could not afford not to try.