Paul George is back in harness for the Indiana Pacers though he seems far from the star player that everyone knows him to be.
Of course he has been out for a great majority of last season, returning in the latter part of the 2014-15 NBA season which was more of getting a feel of the game.
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George was forced to the sidelines last year after suffering a broken leg in an intra-scrimmage for USA Basketball last year and the Pacers star forward is aching to get back into action.
Though he had the full offseason to work his way back into shape, his first game was one of those games when everything just didn’t go for him. He had a poor shooting percentage (4 of 17 from the field) as his team lost to the Toronto Raptors, 106-99.
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Apparently George came out frustrated with this one as the Pacers provided a glimpse of their new up-tempo brand of basketball. So frustrated that George went as far as blaming the game officiating, publicly saying that there were a lot of bad calls in that match.
That statement apparently reached the NBA and for making those public comments, George has drawn a $10,000 fine for publicly criticizing game officials.
George doesn’t have much of a history of complaining about officiating so the comments do come as a surprise. Could it be part of his frustrations as far as shifting to the power forward position as ordered by the Pacers top brass?
It is still too early in the season to tell and the Pacers have yet to see if their fast-paced style of play will work or not for them. Given more playing days, the Pacers can more or less evaluate if this is indeed the way to go.
Until that is settled, George may want to prolong his patience and try to maintain focus unless he wants to draw another hefty fine which could include game suspensions if he is not careful.
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