Paul George is a seven time NBA All-Star who signed a four year, $176 million contract extension last season. But not many NBA All-Stars can say they once turned down an offer from Georgetown to play in the Western Athletic Conference.

George grew up in Palmdale, CA, sixty miles north of Los Angeles. Showing steady but not spectacular improvement, he wasn't highly ranked in various recruiting services. In 2007, Scout.com noted that "Paul George is immensely talented wing prospect at 6-7, however, he needs to be much more assertive at both ends if he's going to reach his lofty potential." Rivals.com ranked him as "a player that could be a contributor as a true freshman", but not among its top 150.

In the summer before his senior season, he verbally committed to Santa Clara, but changed his mind and committed to Pepperdine, where his sister had attended. Averaging 23.3 points and 11.2 rebounds per game as senior, he was an all-conference selection and ranked 20th statewide. George would have ended up at Pepperdine had it not been for the resignation of head coach Vance Walberg midway through a 11-21 season, and George reopened his recruitment just as his star was ascendant. Three new schools appeared on the horizon: Fresno State, Penn State, and Georgetown.

Earlier that season, head coach John Thompson III had secured a unusual verbal commitment from a Los Angeles area high school sophomore, 6-8 Hollis Thompson, and saw an opportunity with the similar sized George. Coming off its 2007 Final Four appearance, the Hoyas were at the peak of its recruiting reach.

"There haven't been many times Fresno State has gone head-to-head with traditional national power Georgetown," wrote the Fresno Bee, asking if a top 150 recruit would rather "play for a basketball program located three hours from home, but in the midst of a massive rebuild and coming off probation, or go across [the] country in Washington, D.C., but play for a program that's made nine Elite Eight NCAA Tournament appearances and produced the likes of Allen Iverson and Patrick Ewing?"

"When you look at the program perceptions at the time, why wouldn't he go to Georgetown?" said former Fresno State coach Steve Cleveland. "Our circumstances really fit what he was looking for."

"I think they kind of understood that I was a diamond in the rough," George told Draft Express. "I didn't want to go to a bigger school just for the simple fact that I wanted to be an impact guy immediately. I wanted to learn from mistakes by playing as a freshman."

George saw a Georgetown lineup entering the 2008-09 season that was going to be stacked with talent: freshman Greg Monroe, a pair of sophomore guards in Austin Freeman, Chris Wright, junior guard Jeremiah Rivers, and a deep front line with Vernon Macklin, Dajuan Summers, and inbound transfer Julian Vaughn. With a strong recruiting class of Monroe, top 100 forwards Henry Sims and Chris Braswell, and three time All-Met guard Jason Clark, Thompson seemed to have the Hoyas' stat sheet loaded for years to come.

"Looking at those rosters, there was always a guy ahead of me," George told the Long Beach Press Telegram. "I just wanted to come in my freshman year and play a lot of minutes. Just to be able to make mistakes and grow from them."

Even if John Thompson III had seen the pending storm on his roster, it's unlikely he would have promised the playing time sought.

On April 16, 2008, Paul George committed to Fresno State. Seven days later, Vernon Macklin announced a transfer from Georgetown. Two weeks after Macklin's decision, Jeremiah Rivers announced a transfer and local sources confirmed Chris Braswell had failed to gain eligibility for admission.

"Down to just nine available scholarship players and only one returning frontcourt player with any experience, the Hoyas aren't likely to earn any three-peat votes in what perhaps will be the deepest conference in America," wrote the Washington Times.

If Paul George wanted lots of minutes at Fresno State, he got them, averaging just short of 35 minutes per game as a freshman, shooting 44 percent from three and averaging 14.3 points per game as a freshman and 16.8 points as a sophomore. The Bulldogs were a meager 28-39 (.417) after two seasons, but NBA scouts saw something more, and upon declaring for the 2010 NBA draft, George's stock was rising in a big way.

"In five years," an unnamed NBA scout told Yahoo.com, "Paul George will be the best player to come out of this draft. Trust me."

Paul George was the 10th pick in the 2010 NBA draft. Eleven years later, George's 23.3 points and 6.6 rebounds per game for the Los Angeles Clippers have made him an elite NBA player at the age of 30.

Georgetown didn't miss on Paul George as much as he was looking for a different program to grow his skills. Fresno State retired his #24 jersey in 2019, joining Jerry Tarkanian (who played at Fresno for one season in 1954-55) as the only players so honored by that school.