Pumping the brakes on the Paul George doomerism

Paul George’s Sixers tenure couldn’t be off to a worse start, but it may not be as bad as it looks.

It turns out not having the full use of all your fingers is detrimental to your ability to play basketball.

The Paul George experience in Philadelphia is not off to the best start. Only appearing in 35 of the first 54 games this season, PG’s stop-and-start season has been riddled with inconsistencies.

His 16.1 points per game, 42% field goal percentage and 36% three-point percentage are all just about the lowest marks since his rookie season. His 13.9 field goal attempts per game are the lowest in a full season they’ve been since his second year in the league.

His struggles really came to a head in the Sixers’ final game before the All-Star break. On a night where the Sixers were down Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid, George scored just two points as they lost to the Brooklyn Nets 100-96. As the No. 1 option, he shot just 1-of-7 from the floor. He seemed so uncomfortable he passed up a shot that could have cut the lead to one point even as there was less than 10 seconds remaining.

After a five-game losing streak that puts them at a season-worst 14 games under .500, the fanbase has reached its breaking point. The night of the Brooklyn loss, several declarations were made that George isn’t even better than last not-actually-maximum-player making a max contract here, Tobias Harris.

George deserves his fair share of blame for the disaster this season has been. His inability to stay healthy has been just as frustrating as his inconsistent play when he’s taken the floor. While it’s been hard for him to string consecutive weeks together, there has been evidence that he’s still the player the Sixers thought they were getting when they gave him the four-year maximum contract last summer.

For starters, he is clearly still hampered by the torn tendon he suffered in his left pinky back on Jan. 25.

In the five games he’s played since returning from that injury, he’s averaging 12.3 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 2.5 assists per game. All are notable decreases, even from his lower season averages.

When he first returned from the injury, he said that he has to keep that finger straight 24/7, a condition commonly known as mallet finger. He said that it was something he’d have to do for at least a few more weeks.

As he told reporters in Brooklyn after his two-point performance, it’s something that’s constantly on his mind while on the court.

“The pain pretty much went down, but little things like ball handling, catching it, going left at moments,” he said to the media, “there were a couple of plays tonight where it bobbled a little bit just because I was essentially playing like [with a bent finger] all game. So it’s frustrating, but it is what it is.”

ESPN’s Shams Charania reported after that Nets game that George has been receiving injections to get him through the past four or five games. That treatment isn’t something guys typically go to until the postseason.

Not only is that still a bother, but he also said after that game that his groin injury is still lingering as well. For some reason, playing through multiple injuries seems to be a rite of passage for every Sixer this season.

It’s important to remember where he was before suffering that pinky injury. In the 16 games leading up it, he was averaging 18.1 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game, all a lot closer to his career marks.

Per Cleaning the Glass, lineups with Maxey and George on the floor together score 115.7 points per 100 possessions, posting an effective field goal percentage of 54.3%. Nothing crazy, but both of those numbers are comfortably above average.

Lineups with Embiid though, who’s only played in 17 games, have been more inconsistent. Groups with the two of George and Embiid are only scoring 104.1 per 100, with a 50.2 effective field goal percentage. Both of those marks however are well below average.

In another media availability during the five-game losing streak, George told reporters that playing next to Embiid has been harder than anticipated.

“He makes the game easy with just his presence and the attention that he draws, but it’s been a challenge, I won’t shy away from that one,” he told reporters, “Challenges, I look forward to them. So I’m going to embrace it and try to figure this out.”

George knows that the answer to this solution is just playing more games together, but as this season has shown, that is way easier said than done.

“A ton of it is through games. You guys see that we try to talk through games, talk through possessions,” he said, “But I’ve got to know his side of things. I’ve got to see what he sees, and vice versa. So we’re getting there. A little more work to do, but we’re getting there.”

Concerns that Embiid and George could never stay healthy long enough were valid, even before this season from hell, where they’ve only started and completed 10 games together. George has only hit the 60-game threshold once since he was on the Oklahoma City Thunder, and no one here needs to be reminded of everything that keeps Embiid off the court.

Even if the franchise wants to completely start over, they’ll have to rehab both of their value before doing so. As Brian Windhorst pointed out the other day on ESPN, Embiid is pretty much untradeable at the moment, due to his injury concerns and years left on his contract. George is in the same boat for pretty much the same reasons.

The Sixers may have to pull the plug on this experiment way quicker than anyone anticipated, but they’ll have to play out the string a little longer before they’re able to do so.