Sixers mailbag: ‘How cooked is Paul George?’

Paul George stood in the Sixers' locker room on Monday night, set to field yet another batch of questions about the team's futility in one of the most disastrous seasons in recent NBA history. This time, the 34-year-old who uprooted his family, left his hometown of Los Angeles and joined the Sixers in hopes of winning a championship took the gloves off a bit.

"We’ve shown no sign of a team that will compete," George said. "We just don't have the habits of a champion or a playoff contending team.”

In this week's Sixers mailbag, you wanted to discuss George's disappointing first season with the Sixers and the potential impacts of a several-week tank that appears to be getting in motion. Let's discuss:

From @ocaptmyobvious.bsky.social: How cooked is Paul George? Earlier it looked like it was just a shooting diet/slump issue that might be fixed with healthy Joel Embiid. Now it seems worse, is it just the pinky and apathy?

George is not "cooked" in this sense: he is still a good NBA player. He is a reliable shot-maker with occasional off-the-dribble shot creation for himself and others who has taken his defense up a notch this season from where it had been in recent years. Contracts aside, he is a player a team would always rather have than not have.

But the reality is that George will turn 35 years old in a few months and is on the Sixers' books for another three years, a period in which he is owed over $150 million. George is a nine-time All-Star who was brought to Philadelphia to provide star power alongside Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, and he has never sniffed that level of production as a Sixer.

George has only scored 30-plus points in three of his 38 games this season, and has not scored at least 20 points in a single game in over a month. George suffered a bothersome left pinky injury which forced him to play with a splint that immobilizes that finger, essentially rendering him only capable of using nine fingers. In eight games with the splint, George is averaging 12.8 points per game despite Embiid missing that entire stretch.

It has all coalesced into the worst overall season of George's career. The volume is down and the efficiency is down:

Category Paul George in 2024-25 Worst mark since…
Points per game 16.2 2011-12
Field goal percentage 43.2 2021-22
Three-point percentage 35.5 2021-22
Free throw attempts per game 2.4 2010-11
True shooting percentage 54.4 2021-22

Months back, I dove into George's shot diet and found many concerning trends. The largest takeaway — which is also evident when watching George play — is that diminished burst has prevented him from consistently creating advantages off the dribble. He is repeatedly stonewalled on drive attempts and forced to settle for difficult jumpers. Because George is a very skilled jump-shooter, he has enough skill to be passable in this role, but it severely limits his upside as the sort of scorer he must be to have a star-level impact on winning.

Here is George's updated average shot distance as a Sixer and frequencies in various ranges compared with his shot profile in five seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers, courtesy of basketball-reference:

Category George with Los Angeles Clippers (2019-2024) George with Sixers (2024-25)
Average shot distance (ft.) 16.9 18.0
% of FGA between 0-3 ft. .150 .101
% of FGA between 3-10 ft. .132 .127
% of FGA between 10-16 ft. .126 .135
% of FGA between 16 ft.-3P .143 .165
% of FGA from 3P .448 .471

Only one of every 10 George field goal attempts coming within three feet of the rim — plus a massive decline in free throw attempts — signals a serious diminishment of burst that has prevented George from going downhill with any sort of success. It is a major concern moving forward, and this was the case before the finger injury further complicated things. The Sixers will have to recalibrate in a lot of ways exactly how George fits into the optimal version of their team in the long run.

MORE: Embiid, Sixers 'considering alternative options' on left knee

From @cgiff.bsky.social: How much do you think doing a soft tank will hurt morale? The "calculated" move is clearly to try and lose as much as possible, but how does that affect players like Tyrese Maxey, Quentin Grimes, Guerschon Yabusele, even Lonnie Walker IV? Is that worth worrying about?

If the mood inside the locker room was any indication, morale is already down — understandably. These are professional athletes who dedicate every waking moment to honing their craft, and they are being routinely embarrassed in front of their fans and the world in a season they entered under the belief they could contend for a championship. But, as just about every active NBA player has said at some point, "the NBA is a business." It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that piling up losses would not be the worst idea for a team that only keeps its first-round pick in June if it lands in the top six.

That will not make things any easier for someone like Maxey, a wildly competitive player who has never experienced anything like this season in his basketball life. Maxey has been a winner at every level, including his first four NBA seasons as he joined a budding hopeful contender. It is reasonable to be concerned that Yabusele, who has expressed tremendous gratitude to the Sixers for giving him an opportunity to return to the NBA which he has made the most of, could look around and wonder if the grass is greener elsewhere.

For others, though, the next seven weeks or so should be seen as an opportunity. Grimes is a restricted free agent after this season, which means the Sixers can match any deal he signs with another team. He will likely be a Sixer long-term regardless of how he feels about a tank. Then there are players like Walker, Jared Butler and even Ricky Council IV, who are fighting for their NBA livelihoods moving forward. Walker and Butler have team options on their deals for 2025-26. Walker surely does not want to go back overseas; Butler is running out of teams to secure an NBA home. Council's stock has plummeted this year and he is not guaranteed a single penny of the remaining two years of salary on his deal.

The Sixers should use their final 25 games to give players like Walker, Butler and Council chances to prove they deserve to still be Sixers next season. They should give Grimes the ball and see what he does with it to improve their understanding of his utility before crafting a contract offer. They should provide rookie center Adem Bona with some runway to make a case for a rotation spot next season.

None of these options are solutions to the Sixers' much larger issues, but it is the best they can do at this juncture.

MORE: What is the 2025 NBA Draft class looking like?

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