Doyel: Is clock ticking on Paul George's time with Pacers?

INDIANAPOLIS – It was noise before, but only if you wanted to hear it, like the ticking of a wristwatch. Before, you had to put the idea up to your ear for it to register: Paul George just might leave the Indiana Pacers after next season.

It is noise now, the kind you can't ignore.

Like the ticking of a time bomb.

The timer is set to the summer of 2018, when Paul George can leave the Pacers as a free agent. And during NBA All-Star Weekend in New Orleans, George came clean and basically said the words out loud: He just might do it.

If you’re a Pacers fan, this could be terrifying new information. If you’re Pacers President Larry Bird, working the phones as the trade deadline approaches Thursday, this is nothing you didn’t know already. It was months ago when Bird told George there is a contract extension waiting for him, whenever he is ready to sign it.

George told Bird: I’m not ready to sign it.

Paul George on extension: 'I want to play on a winning team'

The most optimistic Pacers fans cling to the idea that nobody else can pay George what the Pacers can, and that could be true. The NBA collective bargaining agreement allows a superstar’s current team to pay him more than anyone else. The league is encouraging stability, but it is a false hope.

LeBron James left Cleveland for Miami, and then he left Miami for Cleveland. Kevin Durant left Oklahoma City for Golden State.

Do you know why stars do this? Because taking “less” money is relative and even irrelevant in a day when “less” money still means more money than most of us – and them – can even comprehend. Durant received $54 million over two years. That’s $27 million a year. That’s “less” money.

There’s some collective bargaining gobbledygook here, but the Pacers can give George a contract worth roughly $212.3 million over six years if he achieves a contractual accelerator by making the All-NBA first, second or third team this season. If he goes anywhere else, the max he can get is $123 million over four years. Either way, it's more money than George and his loved ones could spend.

But anyway, we don’t have to speculate anymore – and I shouldn’t have to try to convince you, anymore – that Paul George could leave after next season. We have that in PG’s own words.

"As I told Larry (Bird), I always want to play on a winning team …" George told ESPN Radio from New Orleans. "It's frustrating just playing the game for stats or for numbers or to showcase yourself. Man, I want a chance to play for ... a championship.”

George went on to say that he wants “to be the first to bring (an NBA) championship to Indiana,” and I’m sure he means that. But I’m also sure he’ll survey the landscape between now and next summer and bolt if he thinks it won’t happen here. He’ll be 28 after next season, and entering his ninth season. His own body clock, the clock on his NBA career, will be tick-tick-ticking.

All of this brings into play the nuclear option, an option nobody around here wants to say aloud, but suddenly a very real consideration for Bird and the Pacers:

Trading Paul George.

You don’t trade Paul George because he isn’t talented enough. He’s one of the most talented players in the NBA, arguably the most talented Pacer of all time. You don’t trade a talent like this because you can go out and get another one. You trade a talent like Paul George because you’re afraid this amazing talent – this valuable asset – might just leave your team in exchange for nothing.

That’s the scenario Bird has to consider. That’s the race that has just begun: Can the Pacers convince George they are building a possible championship team between now and the summer of 2018? If they can, maybe – maybe – Paul George stays. If they cannot?

He’s gone.

Those are the options. Don’t tell me, Paul George apologists, what you want to happen. I’m telling you what PG just said can happen.

Also scary: Jeff Teague is in the final year of his contract. Teague is the franchise’s best point guard in decades, and he can leave after this season. The Pacers acquired him in June but didn’t sign him to an extension or renegotiate his modest $8 million salary for 2016-17 – which would have meant larger raises down the road. That’s more CBA gobbledygook, but it’s true and it’s ominous, and it also means this:

Teague has what in NBA circles is known as an “expiring contract,” which makes him a valuable trade chip right now. Teams trying to clear cap room after this season can acquire him and then clear his salary from the books, making room for a free agent this summer.

Look, all of these scenarios rate somewhere between unlikely and unknown, and Bird knows the possibilities and the potholes. While the 2017 NBA draft is highly regarded and Bird is willing to trade a first-rounder, the Pacers are on pace to draft somewhere in the late teens. And historically, Indiana has not been a marquee free-agent destination. All of which means the Pacers can't expect to improve in a hurry.

Report: Pacers shopping first-round pick to find help for Paul George

In the past two years, the Pacers have drafted Myles Turner and added Teague, Thaddeus Young and Al Jefferson – and guess what? The improvement has been incremental.

If at all.

Bird drafted well to get George 10th overall in 2010 and Turner 11th in 2015, but what else has he done for this team? The acquisitions of Teague and Young looked great – I loved them – but the Pacers are in sixth place in the Eastern Conference, 29-28 after 57 games.

Behind their pace of last season.

This time a year ago, the Pacers were 31-26 and in fifth in the East. The Pacers might not be worse than a year ago, but you can’t say they’re better.

Paul George is watching. The clock is ticking. Larry Bird has a decision to make, and to understand his thought process, understand this: Bird publicly has said the 20-year-old Turner could be "maybe the best" player in franchise history, and privately he believes Turner (15.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.1 blocks) can be the foundation of an NBA championship team, even if George leaves.

That's the future, but in some ways the future is now. The trade deadline is Thursday. Even if Bird wants to do something, what can he offer of value beyond Teague’s expiring contract or a 2017 first-round pick in the late teens?

Bird isn’t normally a seller. He always wants to win now, believing any playoff appearance – even the eighth and final spot, assuring a first-round exit – beats a shot at the NBA draft lottery.

That’s Bird’s normal plan of attack, but nothing is normal about this situation. Paul George might leave after next season, and to be very clear: I think he will.

The Pacers have to be worried. The trade deadline is Thursday. Who does Bird acquire?

Who does he send away?

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