The deal includes a player option on the fourth year, the sources said.
Without taking any free-agency meetings, George made the announcement that he is staying with the Thunder at a house party in Oklahoma City hosted by Russell Westbrook, sources at the party confirmed.
George took to Instagram late Saturday to post a photo of himself with Westbrook, along with the caption, “Unfinished business.”
With many assuming that the Los Angeles Lakers were the unquestioned favorites for George, his decision to stay with the Thunder came as a bit of a shock. However, sources told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne that George informed the Thunder of his intentions well before Saturday’s party so they could operate in free agency with confidence that he was staying.
George was traded to OKC almost exactly a year ago after informing the Indiana Pacers that he would not re-sign with them, instead preferring to join his hometown Lakers in free agency. The Thunder spent the year recruiting George to sign up long-term, beginning with fans welcoming him at the airport and a welcome party organized a day after.
“I haven’t been in a position to be a free agent or know what that is like and then to have the chance to go where you want to go. That’s always been, I feel with players, they want that option,” George said at exit interviews after the season. “But then you go into an organization where they kind of check the boxes on all the things that you want out of an organization, and then immediately they become a candidate to where you want to play long-term.
“So that was the case. That’s been the case here,” he said. “They honestly check the boxes where I needed those boxes to be checked from what a player wants and needs out of a front office, out of a medical group, out of teammates, out of coaching staff. I mean, honestly, they can’t say it anymore [than] that. They checked the boxes on what needs to be checked.”