Agreed. Pull a 1997 Spurs. Robinson missed most of that year due to back and foot injuries(and strategic tanking by Popovich). Their reward was Tim Duncan. The Pacers need to intentionally suck, get a high draft pick, get George back the following year(hopefully at full strength), and they'll vault back to the top of the standings in the East in no time. As for next season in the Leastern Conference, I guess it's either the Cavs or Bulls in the Finals, right? My money is on Cleveland right now.
People often think it's just a shin splint and X-rays usually won't reveal the stress fracture, MRI or bone scan is needed.
Haven't seen x-rays of the injury but any time it's an open injury you worry about infections. Open injuries are based n Gustillo-Anderson classification at time of surgery and his was probably a grade 1. So chances of him getting osteomyelitis in the future or a soft tissue will be relatively low... As for this fracture, he will likely get an intramedullary nail through the tibia and the fibula will not be fixed. Depending on amount of comminution (how many pieces at the fracture site) and fracture pattern, he could possibly put weight on it right away. In either case, he will be weight bearing by 8-12 weeks. Basketball form will take longer. Expect him to be out until playoffs or gone for whole season. People do fine from this all the time.
Playing for free in FIBA/Olympic events to enrich corrupt international sports officials is ****ing stupid.
The answer is not keeping the players from playing in international play. It was a totally freak accident. A totally non related injury could've happened outside of this game....imagine getting injured playing a pick-up game or something. You can't live life not doing what you love simply because you can get hurt. Heck, we can all get in car accidents driving to work. You just can't forecast that. It just sucks to see it happen. I mean come on, how cool is it to travel the world, play ball, and help your country qualify for the olympics?...
Agreed - it's an extremely fluky thing. If you stop doing things everytime there's a freak accident, you'll sooner or later end up doing nothing at all and living in a bubble.
Except with star players, teams have invested upwards of a hundred million dollars on a player. George is now on a max contract, and will be paid $15 million this year, scaling up each year until year 5 where he'll be paid $20 million. Imagine he's never the same (Livingston certainly wasn't for a long time), this injury will harm the Pacers franchise for a decade. Not only are the teams paying a possible dead weight contract, but the loss in merchandise & ticket revenue is too much to comprehend. I think NBA players will continue to play in these events, but the elite talent will no longer be involved. Players with something to prove will be involved, but the stars will no longer play.
This should have been done a while ago. Always being reactive instead of proactive. Smh George is done for the year
I had some pals over and we were watching this live. The game wouldn't replay it so we knew it was something horrible, but we didn't catch it cause it happened so quickly. We rewinded the DVR and watch in slo-mo. Had no idea what we were getting into. Rest of the night was everyone trying to scrub that clip from their mind's eye. That ranks up there with Joe Theismann, Kevin Ware, and sort of Shaun Livingston. Livingston was gruesome but that was in the way more intricate knee. This was similar to the Kevin Ware leg break. Fibula snap. Ware suffered that in March '13, and was playing again that November, so 8 months later. There's a chance he could return for the playoffs. Tough turnaround for the Pacers...Danny Grainger never making it back, losing Stephenson, and now Paul George out for an entire season.
For a decade? Setback for sure but capwise, they have insurance to help with that. Talent wise a huge setback for sure.
There's no infection or ancillary injury so really it's just a severly fractured leg. He'll be back in 7-9 months but definitely not this season.
in soccer, superstars play international throughout the year. christiano ronaldo played in the world cup while injured injuries happen. if people are so scared about superstars getting injured in non-regular season basketball then we should just ban all drew league, dyckman, all-star game, charity, summer league, etc because players might get hurt.
X-RAY of Paul George's leg (looks legit): Spoiler http://terezowens.com/x-ray-of-paul-georges-broken-leg-hits-the-web/
[rQUOTEr]Statement from Larry Bird “Our first thoughts are with Paul and his family. It is way too early to speculate on his return as the No. 1 priority for everyone will be his recovery. Our initial discussions with our doctors and the doctors in Las Vegas have us very optimistic. We are hopeful at some point next week Paul will return to Indianapolis to continue his recovery. “There is no question about the impact on our team but our goal is to be as strong-willed and determined as Paul will be in coming back. Our franchise has had setbacks in its history but has demonstrated the abilities to recover. Paul will provide the example of that off the court and it is up to the rest of us to provide that example on the court. Any discussion regarding the future of our team would be inappropriate at this time. Our focus is solely on Paul and doing whatever we can to help. ”We still support USA Basketball and believe in the NBA's goals of exposing our game, our teams and players worldwide. This is an extremely unfortunate injury that occurred on a highly-visible stage, but could also have occurred anytime, anywhere. “Finally, the Pacers would like to thank our fans and the NBA community for their outreach of support in the brief amount of time since the injury occurred. It has been overwhelming and it is what makes Indiana and the NBA special.”[/rQUOTEr]
