Paul George may be the most talented player to have ever worn an Indiana Pacers uniform. His two-way excellence makes him one of the most impactful players in the league and, for right now, everything the Pacers have imagined for their future revolves around his talents. But exactly what kind of star is he?
We can call Paul George a star because, in practical terms, the label of “star” is about as concretely defined as the descriptor “awesome.” George is a star because the sum of his offensive and defensive skills impacts a game as few others can. But mostly, he is a star because he looks like a star. He carries himself like a star. He complains about missed calls like a star. He takes a star’s shots and scores a star’s points. George is a star because his talent is impossible to overlook and because fans, teammates, and opponents afford him the respect of a star.
Over his past four games, George has certainly been filling the box score like a star, averaging 30.3 points, 9.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.5 steals per game, on 48 percent from the field and 44.8 percent on three-pointers. The Pacers are, unsurprisingly, 3-1 over that stretch. For Indiana to get where they intend to go (top of the Eastern Conference and beyond), they need to George to be the kind of player he’s been for the past four games. They need his solar gravity to hold their roster and their system together. He is the line in the sand between something special and the treadmill of plucky mediocrity.
It’s not surprising that George’s explosive stretch has included games against the Miami Heat and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Heat are the whetstone on which George sharpened his blades of stardom. Three straight playoff exits at the hands of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and company did more than light a motivational fire, they provided the template for George, a star-shaped mold that he has been trying to cram his skills into ever since. The way Wade and LeBron could both swallow an opposing scorer in key moments and single-handedly bust a defense at the other end is clearly the path George has set for himself. He has a healthy, aspirational respect for both players and has worked hard at making himself an equal of theirs. It has lifted the Pacers but it may also be setting an unrealistic and even unhealthy expectation.
As much as he can look like them for moments, and even entire games, George is not a Wade or James offensively. Like most mortals, he is vastly better against a scattered defense, attacking in transition or catching the ball on the move at the elbow after a pick-and-roll or a series of off-ball screens has already sent the defense scrambling into a cascade of rotations. Throwing him the ball on the wing against a static defense and asking him to create something good is still a mixed bag.
The night before his hot streak started, facing the volcanic hot Detroit Pistons, George was able to catch Reggie Jackson on a switch several times. He handled this mismatch in star fashion–isolating at the elbow or taking Jackson to the low post. Once he was able to muscle to the basket for an easy layup. But there was also a contested turnaround and a sloppy turnover. It’s in these scenarios of star responsibility that we often see the worst of George. His isolations and post-ups provide a relatively poor rate of return and when good things happen in these scenarios it seems like it’s often because a slightly out-of-control drive finishes with him at the free throw line. We can chalk some of this up to the shaking off rust and the loss of a fraction of a step in athleticism, but it doesn’t really feel like something new. In George’s NBA ascension, he’s looked like a star but never quite fully played the part, at least not in that go-get-me-a-bucket sort of way with the game on the line.
To be clear, we’re picking nits here, focusing in on a handful of possessions from multi-season sample. Maybe George at his best is 85 percent of LeBron James in that role of one-man wrecking crew, but 15 percent is a difference of significance, especially if it’s what Indiana leans on in the waning moments of a close game or if it’s what George leans into when he feels the pressure to make a statement about who or what he is on the basketball court. It presents a unique challenge when Indiana’s best player is at his best when functioning within the flow as opposed to dictating it. The past four games he and the Pacers have found a comfortable balance and the system has mostly fed his offense, to spectacular results.
George has so many distinct skills — the smooth jump-shot, the body control as he goes around a screen, the way he turns up court as he secures a defensive rebound, the vision to see a narrow cross-court opening for a bounce pass and the hand-eye coordination to deliver it in the only seam where it will actually slip through. Self-awareness is the key that unlocks all of his physical tools. It is also, I would argue, one of the most undervalued and poorly utilized basketball skills, knowing exactly how and when to unfurl your full capabilities to create the biggest advantage for your team. That’s not to say that George is some Jordan Crawford, out there constantly lobbing water balloons of self-indulgence. But perhaps his best destiny is emulating Kawhi Leonard, a star whose brilliance is filling in all his team’s cracks, instead of LeBron, trying to pry cracks open in an opponent’s facade. Over the past few years, George’s development in the realm of physical has been phenomenal. Scraping his ceiling means a fully developed sense of self.
There is some Indiana sensitivity wrapped up in here. Last fall, after George’s catastrophic broken leg, I wrote about how much he meant to the Pacers because of his talent, because of his potential to help the team transcend a plucky “Indiana Basketball” legacy of having to overcome other teams’ talent with grit, smarts, and hard work. But there is a balance to be struck. George’s talent is a natural resource this organization hasn’t always had available throughout its history, but it might be most powerful when placed in a framework of grit, smarts, and hard work, as opposed to some ladder used to climb out of it.
In the end, as the past week has dramatically emphasized, the Indiana Pacers need Paul George to be the absolute best version of himself, even if that means being his own kind of star. He’s living in that moment right now and the true measure of his star quality will be if he can stay there.