Given Paul George’s Tired Legs, Should the Indiana Pacers Give Him a Vacation?

Paul George says is legs are tired. How much rest should the Indiana Pacers give him?

What Paul George is doing this season is amazing, there is no doubt about that. Despite his recent struggles, George’s 23.7 points per game are good for eighth best in the NBA. He has still been a force to be reckoned with on the defensive end as part of the NBA’s fourth-ranked defense.

But both he and his team have had a problem with finishing out games as of late. As a team, it is a hard-to-solve issue, but for Paul George, there is a very specific reason for his weariness.

He broke his freaking leg in 2014.

That took him a year to recover from — or, at least, to get back on the court from — but neither his return nor his impressive start to the season means that Paul George’s body was 100% back to normal when the season started.

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Nate Taylor of the Indianapolis Star recently talked to Paul George about how all of this is catching up with him.

"A few weeks ago, George elected to push through the soreness in his legs, resulting in inconsistent performance. But on Monday, he acknowledged that continuing such an effort could make him less effective.“I think a lot of it is just being overly confident that I can go out and still do the things I was doing (earlier in the season),” George said. “It’s not the case. It’s hard and it’s weighing on me right now, it’s weighing on my body, it’s weighing on my mental (approach). It just sucks knowing where you were at.”"

Taylor also added the statistic that Geroge is averaging 22.2 points and 6.5 rebounds a game in January, below his season averages of 23.7 and 7.2. He also noted that Paul George was laying down and getting stretched during games (a first), and has been practicing less.

Coach Frank Vogel acknowledged PG’s tiredness as well.

"“We’re asking a lot of (George). It’s definitely something that’s limiting him right now and limiting us and we’ve got to keep a close eye on it,” said Vogel. “He’s talking about his legs being heavy having missed an entire year and having his leg rebuilt.”"

Paul George says he expects to be more consistent in the second half of the season, but how he does that is harder to figure out.

All of this leads me to ask this question: Should the Indiana Pacers have Paul George take a week or so off?

LeBron James did it last year and it helped turn around his season. He recharged his batteries, and the Cleveland Cavaliers ended up going to the NBA Finals.

While Paul George’s weary legs have more to do with recovery than general fatigue, it should be an option the Pacers explore. It is clear that PG hasn’t been himself over the past six weeks, and it isn’t a mystery as to why. His body wasn’t really back to 100% even when the season started. And now it appears to be breaking back down. It seems unlikely that he can get back to where he was to start the season if he is only taking a day or two off in between games. Hopefully, he can get some solid rest during the All-Star break, but he will be busy during the weekend of the game and that is still weeks away. Perhaps resting him now for a few games, then also letting him recuperate more during the break, will have him putting up November numbers again for the critical final stretch of the season from February through April.

We’ve seen what Paul George is capable of when he was a fringe MVP candidate in November. He was a monster on the court that nobody wanted to deal with. But he’s regressed now. Sure, falling back and still being a top-10 scorer scoring isn’t bad, but this isn’t a fully operational PG. 

Paul George 2015-16 Stat Breakdown | PointAfter

The schedule is much more forgiving going forward as well, with the Pacers having 22 of their last 38 games at home. On top of that Myles Turner and Joe Young are looking more and more NBA ready as the games go by, giving Indiana some added depth if Paul George took some time off.

One possible snags in right now are that Rodney Stuckey is out and Ian Mahinmi is recovering from his injury. Though neither plays PG’s position, that still thins the rotation.

So obviously, the less drastic (and more likely) option is that they cut Paul George’s minutes and allow him to rest more during games. That would give Monta Ellis more of a green light to shoot more and distribute less, which would be fine if PG is on the bench. Ellis has proven himself to be very adaptable and I have little reason to believe he lost his ability to score.

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Paul George needs to rest. The question is do they have him take a few games off or just limit his minutes.