Had a look. 10/53 games this year Paul George has shot less than 35% and had less than 20 points. 6 of those games came in 2017 (and one more on the 22nd of December) Now... there's no reason he'd be distracted and disinterested right now is there? Hm... Also for perspective he had 10 games where he had 30+ points and of those 7 of them were over 50% shooting.
These numbers are basically irrelevant if not per36 or adjusted for pace. I mean, how do we REALLY know? /sarcasm
George's worst game statistically this season was a 10 point, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 4 turnover game where he took 8 shots and made only 3 of them. This game was 3 days ago against Miami and he was thrown out. I would crush him for a game like that... but I'm pretty sure it's because his mind is already elsewhere.
Now you're speaking my language! I'm about 90% sure something crazy happens this summer. For better or worse.
PG needs to stop playing it nice and say straight up "im signing with the Lakers". Larry will take a pick and one of Clarkson/Randle, PG will have a decent cast to play with. Or we wait another year and get him for "free".
I personally also think PG is overrated. He is not a #1 on a championship team. He is an ok 2 or a great 3. Anyone expecting him to carry the load and battle this team through tough playoff series will be disappointed. But he wants to be here and he is someone other players are likely to be interested to play with.
i think you've already pursued this line, and i'll disagree again: he's an ok "1" and a great "2". if he's what you say, his teams should be much worse. also, if he's what you say, there's like one "1" in the league (lebron).
I admit, this is a pretty rudimentary analysis, but I looked at George's last 4 healthy seasons 2012/2013, 2013/2014, 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 (he played 79, 80, 81 and 53 so far games). I checked out how many games he scored 20 points or less on 40% or worse shooting: 2012/2013 - 37 games 2013/2014 - 28 games 2015/2016 - 26 games 2016/2017 - 17 games so far Then I looked at how many games he scored 20 points or more on 45% or better shooting: 2012/2013 - 21 games 2013/2014 - 31 games 2015/2016 - 29 games 2016/2016 - 24 games so far Lastly I had a look at a simple point distributon in each season, over 30 pts in a game, 20-30 pt games and less than 20 pts scored: 2012/2013 - 30+ pts (3 times), 20+ pts (31 times), less than 20 (46 times) 2013/2014 - 30+ pts (11 times), 20+ pts (39 times), less than 20 (30 times) 2015/2016 - 30+ pts (21 times), 20+ pts (30 times), less than 20 (30 times) 2016/2017 - 30+ pts (10 times), 20+ pts (22 times), less than 20 (21 times) George took an offensive jump from 2012/2013 to 2013/2014. Since then, he gives you roughly a 1 in 3 shot of having either a good, average or poor offensive game. Average games are where he either scores a decent amount of points on poor efficiency or scores very few points on good efficiency. Also, for what it's worth, in his 2013/2014 season and 2015/2016, he was keeping players to 40% FG, roughly 5% below their season average while guarding the teams best player. This season, they are shooting 47% against him and 1.2% above their average FG percentage.
Two 1's up North. James is a 1. Westbrook is a 1. Anthony Davis is a 1. George may not be a 1 but a solid 2...we could still use his talents to close out games as we don't have any.
There is a reason why there are so few "championship" teams and there is a reason LeBron gets to the finals every year. He is a #1 on a championship team. This league will always have only a few #1s on championship teams. Kobe, Duncan, LeBron, etc...these guys go to the Finals and they go there often. How many guys in the NBA have that type of potential? Not too many really. Curry, LeBron, Durant...Westbrook, Leonard and Harden have to be mentioned even though their teams aren't great. Thats about it IMO. Thats why there aren't too many contenders out there. Because they don't have a #1 to take them to championship level. Anthony Davis, Towns etc. are potential #1s of the future.
Like I said before, I think he can have #1 option level impact because of all the things he does, sort of like a Scottie Pippen type player. But he needs a #1 with him that can score and score lots.
In the league today, your number #2 needs to have #1 potential to be able to win with all the super teams. But yeah, I thought we already had this discussion of if PG is a 1 or 2
You have to start somewhere. No George isn't LeBron, but if we can sign a star we can't go, oh he's not a true #1 guy so forget it let's put it off another year. You have to acquire talent, talent leads to signing or trading for more or better talent, and the hope is, like with the 90's Lakers, eventually leads to winning again.
Exactly. George may not be a #1 scoring option type player, but when that true #1 scorer does come along, he will see George and think that together they can make something special. Maybe George is a Robin (although I think he's more of a Nightwing), but Batman is going to sign with a team with Robin before he signs with a team that has 5 mall security cops.
