Paul George has left Los Angeles twice over. Montrezl Harrell has not left 2020.
Harrell, speaking this week with NBA writer Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson, was asked about George, now a member of the Boston Celtics. He declined to comment in the most pointed way a person can decline to comment.
“I don’t make comments about that boy,” Harrell said. “Me and that boy don’t see eye-to-eye, and we ain’t on no terms, so I don’t make comments about him. Quite frankly, I don’t care.”
One season, one bubble, one grudge
Harrell, 32, and George, 36, shared a locker room for exactly one year: 2019-20. That happens to be the most infamous season in modern Clippers history, the Orlando bubble run where Los Angeles took a 3-1 lead on the Denver Nuggets in the second round and lost the series anyway.
Harrell reportedly called out George during a heated in-game argument in the middle of that collapse. He never really let it go. He admitted in a Players Tribune piece a couple of years back that he once threatened to knock George out.
And he believes the feud cost him his job. “I stated that in the Tribune interview I did as well, regarding how me and him got into it in that bubble situation,” Harrell told Robinson. “I feel like that had a strong trajectory on why the Clippers didn’t sign me back the following year.”
Harrell hit free agency that offseason and signed with the Lakers. He had just won Sixth Man of the Year. The Clippers let the reigning Sixth Man of the Year walk across the hallway to their crosstown rival, and Harrell has always read that as a message about who won the argument.
Is he right about it?
Probably, at least in part. Stars carry weight in these decisions, and George was a co-franchise player on a roster constructed specifically to keep him and Kawhi Leonard comfortable. When a rotation big man screams at that guy on national television during a playoff meltdown, the front office does not need a long meeting to figure out who stays.
That does not make Harrell the villain of the story. He was right about the effort level in that series, and the Clippers spent the next several years proving that group was never as tough as its talent. But being right and being re-signed are different things in the NBA, and the guy averaging 18 points on a max deal wins that tiebreaker every time.
Where the two careers went
The gap since is stark. George landed in Boston in the July blockbuster that sent Jaylen Brown to Philadelphia, with George and draft compensation coming back to the Celtics. He is a nine-time All-Star still starting for a contender in his 17th season.
Harrell has bounced around the league, played overseas stretches, and spoke to Robinson this week about wanting another NBA opportunity. He is six years removed from the award season that should have set him up for a decade.
That gap is what gives the quote its edge. This is not a retired player needling an old rival for podcast clicks. Harrell believes one argument inside a Florida hotel ballroom bent the entire back half of his career, and he is still saying so out loud in 2026.
George, for his part, has never engaged. He has a new team, a new conference and a Celtics roster that needs him to be the best version of himself immediately. Relitigating a bubble series with a former backup center is nowhere on his to-do list, and that asymmetry is probably the thing that annoys Harrell most.
He says he does not care. Nobody who does not care gives an answer that long.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.