INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers weren’t going to trade Paul George and win. That just wasn’t going to happen, so let’s not hold Pacers president Kevin Pritchard to an unfair standard and whine that he didn’t get an equitable return for arguably the most talented player in franchise history.

Equitable wasn’t going to happen. Winning wasn’t going to happen.

But did the Pacers have to lose this badly?

Apparently they did. Let’s not be surprised that Kevin Pritchard was fleeced Friday night by Oklahoma City Thunder GM Sam Presti. Of course Pritchard was fleeced by Presti. He was going to be fleeced by whoever acquired George, because the Pacers had no leverage.

But now we find out just how weak their hand was.

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The Pacers just traded Paul George for one really nice player (Victor Oladipo), one mysterious prospect (Domantas Sabonis) and … that’s it. No draft picks. No future considerations. Hell, the Thunder didn’t even sweeten the deal by throwing in some of those infamous cash considerations.

Oladipo is a really nice player, as I said, and a former IU star who will rival Myles Turner as the team’s most popular player next season.

But in the game that is NBA wheeling-and-dealing, he’s not a terribly impressive asset and his $84 million contract is laughably bad. He can’t be flipped to Boston for any of the draft picks the Celtics were rumored to be shopping for George, rumors we can now reduce to another word:

Lies.

There’s no way Boston was offering young players and first-round draft picks, because Kevin Pritchard would have taken that deal. If we want to complain about Pritchard – I know you do, and I have a bone to pick with Pritchard soon myself – then here’s the complaint:

Why now?

Why this trade, this fast?

Free agency starts at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Dominoes will be falling all over the NBA, with Jeff Teague expected to go to Minnesota and Utah’s Gordon Hayward possibly on the move – to Boston – and who knows what else happening. All hell will break loose, is my point, and teams will find themselves with unexpected needs and unexpected assets. Did the Pacers have to hurry this deal now?

Was the trade market for Paul George that bad?

Notice all the question marks here. That’s because we have no answers. Pritchard knows what other teams have been offering, and what they have not. He told the media the night of the draft that he would not accept a bad trade, wouldn’t rush it, had offers that included players with All-Star pedigrees or All-Star potential or both.

More lies. Because he just accepted a bad trade. He rushed it. And he didn’t get in return a player with an All-Star pedigree, though Oladipo could have All-Star potential. The former IU star is a career 15.9-ppg scorer in four NBA seasons, the first three with Orlando.

Who knows, perhaps Oladipo’s scoring rockets into the 20-ppg range now that he’s leaving OKC’s Russell Westbrook, a great player and an MVP and also the most egregious gunner in the league. Oladipo’s scoring dropped from a high of 17.9 ppg in Orlando in 2014-15 to 15.9 last season with the Thunder. He’s just 25. Maybe he has another gear to hit?

More questions. Like, this:

Domantas Sabonis? Well, he’s 6-10 and he is young, having turned 21 in May. In his rookie season he averaged 5.9 ppg and 3.6 rpg in 20.4 minutes. He shot 32.1 percent on 3-pointers. None of that is any good, but like I said: He’s young. Clearly he’s going to get better. How much better? Another question.

But let’s double back quickly to Pritchard, and to Paul George, and say something that needs to be said: Pritchard was unfair – yes, unfair – to George on draft night. Over and over he called George’s decision not to re-sign after the 2017-18 season a “gut punch.” Pritchard walked into that news conference with one talking point, and believe me, we heard it:

Paul George screwed us.

Look around the league. Gordon Hayward just opted out of his contract with the Jazz. He can leave as a free agent for absolutely nothing in return. That’s a gut punch. Kevin Durant left the Thunder after last season for absolutely nothing in return. That’s a gut punch.

LeBron James went on live national television in 2010 to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for absolutely nothing in return. That’s a gut punch.

Paul George advised the Pacers in February to trade him, 18 months before he could leave for nothing. Technically he told the Pacers that he wanted to win soon, which then-President Larry Bird should have taken as a mandate to dump him, seeing how the Pacers weren’t and still aren’t equipped to win soon. Bird did nothing at the trade deadline. Pritchard has done nothing beyond exercising his draft picks since replacing Bird.

And it was a “gut punch” that George informed the Pacers that he will leave in a year? Nah. Now, the leak about wanting to play for the Lakers may have hurt the Pacers. Possible trade partners see George as a likely one-year rental, but if anyone was paying attention to George, they’d have known the Lakers were his preferred destination anyway.

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Ah well. Water under the bridge. Time to stop beating that horse, because it’s as dead as the Paul George Era here in Indianapolis.

Now we start the Myles Turner Era. He’s Batman, I guess. Victor Oladipo is Robin. Domantas Sabonis is the Riddler, or just the Riddle. Who knows what he is?

More questions. And on Friday night, we were told just one answer:

Paul George wasn’t worth very much.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.