Ahead of the battle of LA on Christmas Day, the Clippers star Paul George praised the Lakers head coach Frank Vogel.
Vogel coached George for five years during their time in Indiana (2011-2016) and the duo will face each other next Wednesday (25/12).
Frank Vogel was obviously huge in your development how much did that, him pushing you, lead you to where you are right now and what’s it like to kind of be on the other side of LA right now?
“You know he definitely helped with my development by throwing me out there, throwing me into the fire, giving me that experience, letting me learn on the fly and make mistakes. He definitely helped with my development.
Just film work, watching games, watching plays, and the game. I think the experience is what helped the most, by allowing me to play and learn on just being out there.
And then just being across from him is great. We both share the city. We both look forward, you know I look forward to matching up and playing against him and going against him, I always have fun with it.
But again, it’s great, we started together in Indiana and here we are in LA as counterparts.”
He was saying he had some trash talk, what did that sound like?
“It was what you would expect, both of us, you know, talking about who was going to run LA, who’s going to be the team of LA so we have some fun with that.”
How often do you guys talk?
“Uh, not as often, not as often. We talked, last time we talked was when the fires and everything was going on and he reached up and gave us support if we needed anything.
If we needed a house to stay you know he opened the doors for me. He’s got his team and I’ve got mine.
We’ll talk on Christmas, I might send him a text before the Christmas game starts, just to wish him a Merry Christmas and the family, but I usually talk to him Holidays, Father’s day we’ll send messages and stuff like that.”
Heading into Christmas day how do you feel about being local and playing Lakers, Clippers on Christmas such a big stage?
“How do I feel about it? I feel great. Any time playing on Christmas is a special honor. Being able to stay home is special honor. Then just getting to enjoy it with family, I think, kind of wraps up the whole thing as just being amazing.”
NBA Christmas Day games are available to watch on Sky Sports Arena on Dec. 25 starting from 5pm in the UK.
