After the debacle that was the Struggle, Indiana Pacers fans were hoping the 2014-15 season was going to be a year of redemption for the once dominant Eastern Conference power. Even if Lance Stephenson had left, the team was ready to take up the slack.
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Then Paul George broke his leg.
What was supposed to be a season of redemption became a season of frustration. Any hopes of that group making amends went away with Roy Hibbert’s and David West’s departures.
Just PG and George Hill are left from that starting group in 2013-14, and Hill had his own renaissance last season with the advent of Aggressive George Hill™.
So now the stage is set for Paul George to return and reinvent himself as an even more dominant player than he was two seasons ago.
Ian Levy wrote over at Hardwood Paroxysm that Paul George is primed and ready for a comeback after missing almost the entirety of last season.
"It will not take much for a bounce-back year from Paul George. Last season he played in just six games, 91 minutes total, sneaking in at the end of the year from some live game action after spending nearly eight months rehabbing from a catastrophic broken leg suffered last August. Simply running and jumping and being on a basketball court is victory enough.That being said, there is reason to think that George might be in for a reinvention this season. The Pacers have been banging the drum of smaller and faster, with the natural extension being lineup versatility and a whole lot of shooting. Roy Hibbert and David West are both gone and there is a good chance that George could be the team’s starting power forward on opening night. If you’re scoring at home that’s an upward slide of two positions from George’s rookie season, where he played shooting guard next to Danny Granger."
There are plenty of players who had season ending injuries last season, but most at least were with their team for the majority of the season.
Unlike an injury where a tendon or muscle is damaged, Paul George broke his leg and avoided any severe damage to the soft tissues surround that area. As strange as it sounds, bones are meant to break. From all indications he’s avoided damaging other parts of the leg that could have caused major issues to his career and quality of life. Assuming that is the case, PG getting over the mental hurdles on the court has been more of an issue than his body itself.
All of that is to say the narrative is set for Paul George to bounce back with a comeback season. Funnily enough NBA.com also has Lance Stephenson and Roy Hibbert on their list of candidates to bounce back, but if there was still an award, I’d say PG’s story is the strongest as both Stephenson and Hibbert are looking to bounce back from disappointing seasons.
However, maybe expectations should be tempered. Last year after the injury happened 538.com went through the data of players when they missed a significant part of the season due to injury. The numbers aren’t encouraging.
Looking at each players wins above replacement we see that many of these All-Star level players don’t comeback the same. Even in the modern era with all the medical advances there are still more Derrick Roses than Sam Cassells. He was playing like a fringe MVP candidate before his injury
That isn’t to say Paul George can’t recover to be even better than he ever was, but the odds aren’t in his favor. Of course, that only will make a comeback story even better if he finds a way to reinvigorate and reinvent himself for the 2015-16 season.
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