The Pacers had no trouble guarding their own basket, but creating efficient offense was a perpetual dilemma. “We’ve been in the bottom third offensively for a couple years now”. It’s a great strategy and George’s versatility made it possible. “Maybe David West was always gone, and maybe if that hadn’t happened, he would have reconsidered trading Roy Hibbert”.
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It signaled the dawn of a new day, one Indiana may soon regret. The two-time All-Star came off the bench, played limited minutes, missed a dunk in his season debut and gave everyone a scare when was carried off the court with a left calf injury in Indiana’s season finale at Memphis. Yet, without this luxury, the Pacers will make due with a “less than thrilled” small forward filling the vast void at the 4-spot.
Playing George at the 4 certainly has its merits.
Still, George sounded less than enthused about the topic. “I don’t think I’m at that point in my career where I should be changing positions”, George continued. “I think guys do that later in their career”, Georgia said. It’s the concern just over the course of a season just how my body would take it, especially coming off the injury that I had and a whole year of rehabbing. But the Pacers seem fixed on going through with this change, and hopefully George isn’t going to disappoint himself and the team in a very different chapter for him in his career. “That’s kinda new to me”, he told Buckner.
He added: “Just not sure of how it’s going to take it. (We’ll) start camp, see how camp goes”.
Um, you know it’s, uh, I was open for – to try it out.
There’s no way Paul George will have a worse season this year than he did last year.
Paul George isn’t thrilled about playing power forward this season. But George, one of the best perimeter defenders in the league prior to the injury, is going to have his own problems on the other end. A quick look at Indiana’s lineup data from the 2013-14 season backs this up.
When Paul George entered the National Basketball Association in 2010, he was a 6-9 shooting guard. Whether he is truly sold on the small-ball approach with George at the 4 or whether he’s following orders from Bird is anybody’s guess, but it’s the hand Vogel has been dealt and he’s showing his willingness to adapt to it. The cold hard truth is whether George or Pacers fans like it or not, there’s simply not a better option at the starting power forward position if the Pacers are truly hoping to embrace the trending small-ball approach the league is adopting. Hill is also the better rebounder of the two centers, but you don’t lose much in the way of rebounding with Mahinmi. The typical power forward is not athletic or skilled enough to defend a player like George on the perimeter. Or make George defend Kevin Love on the block? Not really. Another somewhat-problematic example: Against Chicago, George can erase Nikola Mirotic from the earth’s surface, but then the question becomes “Shouldn’t he guard Jimmy Butler instead?”
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Reinventing yourself as a player is no easy challenge, but if George can at least warm up to the idea and realize how much that strategic deployment can benefit the Pacers in this era of pace-and-space, he will be glad that he did.
