The horrific right leg injury that Paul George suffered during a pre-FIBA World Cup Team USA exhibition on Aug. 1 seemed to change so much — the way NBA players and observers viewed international competitions; the short- and long-term outlook for the Indiana Pacers, the franchise with whom George became an All-Star and that has staked its future on the belief that he will be a maximum-salary-worthy, MVP-caliber cornerstone through at least the end of this decade; etc.
Most importantly, though, it seemed to change the career prospects of a 24-year-old who went from somewhat-surprising top-10 draft pick to the outskirts of the MVP debate in less than four years, only to see that ascent violently halted during thanks to some bad luck and bad basket-stanchion placement while hustling during a scrimmage. Now, nearly six months after the traumatic incident that altered the path of his career and his life, George relives his injury in a video series produced by Bleacher Report. While the series itself will focus on his recovery — it's called "Paul George's Road Back," after all — first things have to come first, and for George and his parents, Paul Sr. and Paulette, that means talking his way through the hopeful moments before the break, the horrifying realization of what had transpired, and the work to pick up the pieces in the aftermath:
(If you found that to be a pretty brutal watch, you're not alone.)
It's easy to forget, so many months after the fact, but it all started with George doing precisely the sort of thing that has made him such a valuable NBA player — seeing an opportunity to make a defensive play and moving as quickly as he can to do so, in this case by hunting a chasedown block on a fast-break by James Harden.
"I missed. I didn't get the ball. But then I came down, and it was just awkward," George says in the video. "I didn't really feel nothing then, but I just knew I couldn't put my foot down. I couldn't help myself from standing. I tried to grab onto the mat to help myself, like, 'Why can't I stand right now?' I looked down to look at my legs, and I saw my bone. And the second I saw my bone, I just ... I lost it.
George's parents open up about the terror they instantly felt — "I was thinking in my mind, 'I hope his career is not over,'" said Paulette George — and, though George himself is a bit more circumspect, he's clear about how difficult the moment was for him as he laid there under the basket at the Thomas and Mack Center.
"That was a tough point, right there," he said. "Everything just slowed down. Like, I could hear every individual in the arena talking."
We're still talking about Paul George, albeit not as much as we were before the injury; there's a bit of out-of-sight-out-of-mind to it, a tendency to prefer focusing on the players producing remarkable moments on the court in the here and now to those who are doing the grueling work of making their way back to the floor away from public consumption. But while the path back consists of countless tedious steps that eventually lead to landmark moments like the ability to once again take jump shots or dunk, George seems — or, at least, publicly presents himself as seeming, since all such single-focus pseudo-documentary projects are to some degree a player marketing tool — to have learned to bear the burden of his comeback, and to be wearing it lightly.
He laughs about the fact that he will need the rod surgically implanted in his leg to repair his shattered tibia and fibula forever ("Yeah, it's a part of me now, an extra bone"). He warmly revisits the well-wishes, visits and gifts he received from those saddened by his injury. He reiterates the optimism that he espoused in his first public comments after the injury, hitting the same notes six months down the line as he did two weeks removed from the break.
And yet, you can't help but wonder if one element of that optimism — perhaps the most important one — is perhaps a bit naive. Can George really ever return mentally to the place he was before that night in Vegas?
"I felt I was immortal. I felt I was invincible. I've made so many plays where guys go down, and I walked up clean from it. So I did feel that nothing bad could ever happen to me on the court," George says in the video. "And to this day, I don't even want to think about ... once I'm healed, that'll be the last that I think about being hurt again."
For the sake of his family, his friends, all of us who love to watch him play — and, most of all, for George himself — let's hope that's true.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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