Paul George is starting for the Eastern Conference in today’s NBA All-Star Game, but let’s take a look back at his previous appearances at All-Star Weekend.
Just a year removed from his career-altering injury, Paul George is starting in the 2016 All-Star Game for the East. He was 10th in voting overall this season and is averaging a career-high in points (23.3 ppg) while also getting 7.1 rebounds and 4 assists a game. There is little question whether he deserved it or not this season as he was a fringe MVP candidate at one point, and even though he’s fallen off that pace he’s still one of the NBA’s best this season.
It is hard to say how he’ll do in this year’s game, but let’s take a look back at his previous All-Star appearances.
In 2012, before in first All-Star appearance, he was in the Rising Stars Game and took part in the Dunk Contest. In the Rising Stars game, he scored 23 points on 10 of 17 shooting while getting 2 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals. Next up for him that weekend was the Dunk Contest, but it wasn’t exactly the best dunk contest in All-Star History, to say the least.
We did, however, get to see PG dunk over Roy Hibbert and Dahntay Jones. Too bad no one saw his dunk in the dark in the second round.
In 2013, Paul George made his debut as an All-Star as a reserve, but when it came game time he certainly proved he was worthy of the selection. In 20 minutes he scored 17 points on 7 of 13 shooting, including 3 for 6 from behind the arc.
He also participated in the 3-Point Contest that year, where he had an air ball and finished dead last.
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It was no surprise he was voted into the next All-Star Game in 2014 when the Pacers were leading the East and were the conference’s only threat to the Miami Heat at the time. That year Roy Hibbert made it into the All-Star Game as well, and Lance Stephenson was just on the fringe. Until the Pacers get back to contender status, it will be the high point for the franchise’s success in recent memory.
In the 2014 game, George scored 18 points on 6 of 13 shooting while grabbing five rebounds and five assists in 33 minutes. He also appeared in the Dunk Contest that year, but since the format was the weird Eastern Conference versus Western Conference format that crowned no individual winner, he shared the victory with John Wall and Terrence Ross. The contest started with a freestyle part where the players worked together, followed by a head to head competition between members of each conference.
While it produced a few great combination dunks that required teamwork, not having a showdown to decide the winner left everyone feeling like something was missing.
The Eastern Conference team won, but John Wall was voted Dunker of the Night by the fans.
He likely would be enjoying his fourth straight All-Star appearance as he’s established himself as one of the NBA’s best two-way players, but of course, his broken leg sidelined him for almost the entirety of the 2014-15 season. However, to already be back in All-Star form this season wasn’t entirely unexpected, but still was a pleasant surprise.
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So what’s in store for this year for Paul George? We’ll have to wait and see when the 2016 All-Star Game tips off at 8 p.m. on TNT.