Report: Clippers Tried To Swap Blake Griffin For Paul George

When the Los Angeles Clippers traded Blake Griffin to the Detroit Pistons on Monday, it caught pretty much the entire NBA universe by surprise.

But this wasn't a spur of the moment decision by the Clippers, who, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, had been finalizing the Pistons deal for six days before the trade went down. They were likely on the phone with other teams well before that, and now we know one of the teams they contacted.

According to ESPN's Royce Young on "The Hoop Collective" podcast, the Clippers put in a call to the Oklahoma City Thunder to see if they'd be interested in trading Paul George for Griffin.

Young: "They offered [Griffin] around to everybody."

Brian Windhorst: "I don't know if that's true."

Young: "I know that they made calls to Oklahoma City for Paul George. I'm pretty sure they made calls to Minnesota for players. So they tried to get some bigger-name players. It just wasn't happening."

Related Story: Griffin Dealt To Detroit

Over the summer, the Thunder were rumored as a possible free agent destination for Griffin, who was born and raised in the Oklahoma City area. But the idea of trading for George, who has blossomed recently on both ends of the court, likely resulted in a very short conversation.

Griffin is a ball-dominant forward who might clash with Russell Westbrook's playing style, while George is a versatile forward capable of spacing the floor (career-high 42 percent on 3-pointers this season) and defending multiple positions (leads the NBA with 2.2 steals per game).

Ultimately the Clippers received a pretty good haul for Griffin, highlighted by Avery Bradley and Tobias Harris, but it's no surprise that they started by going after much bigger fish.