Welcome to the NBA Hater Report: A breakdown of some of the players, teams and trends around the league that are drawing the ire of yours truly. If you’re not a fellow pessimist, proceed with caution.
Early Paul George returns are horrific
The Sixers are a certified mess. They lost again on Wednesday, this time to a Grizzlies team playing without its best player, to fall to 2-12. This is not Paul George’s fault. Tyrese Maxey has been hurt. Joel Embiid has played in four games and been trash in three of them. But George isn’t getting off the hook here.
In seven games this season, George has only cracked the 20-point barrier once. He’s shooting under 40% overall and 27% from 3. Throw out one game in which he went 7-of-11 from deep against the Knicks and his numbers are flat out abysmal. On Wednesday he had two points on 1-of-6 shooting in 17 minutes. Oh, yeah — he also hyperextended his knee and didn’t return.
Nick Nurse said George was close to returning but the knee stiffened up at the last second, so perhaps it’s not too serious. It better not be, because the Sixers are in a serious hole and they’re not going to dig out of it unless George starts producing at a level that comes a lot closer to justifying his max contract than what he’s currently doing.
Yes, there was sort of a built-in understanding that George didn’t have to be