September 21, 2025
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
Was Paul George's disappointing debut season in Philadelphia a sign of things to come?
Welcome to our Sixers player preview series, where in the weeks leading up to Media Day we will preview the upcoming 2025-26 season for each and every member of the Sixers' standard roster. For each player, we will pose two key questions about their season before making a prediction.
The pressure is on after a miserable 24-58 campaign last season. After entering a year with championship aspirations and spending multiple months having to tank for the sake of a protected first-round pick, the Sixers have lost any and all benefit of the doubt that their signature season is finally coming.
It is safe to say there is a whole lot of work to do on the Sixers' end to prove the doubters wrong. Do they have a roster good enough to make it happen?
Up next: Paul George, a nine-time All-Star whose two-way skills were supposed to elevate the Sixers into championship contention last season. Instead, George was one of many Sixers to repeatedly suffer injuries. And across his 41 appearances, George looked like a shell of his former self, unable to generate efficient offense and missing plenty of looks fans have been accustomed to seeing him drain. With three years and over $160 million left under contract, does George have any chance of improving the outlook of the Sixers' massive investment?
SIXERS PLAYER PREVIEWS
Jared McCain | Justin Edwards | VJ Edgecombe | Kyle Lowry
Kelly Oubre Jr. | Johni Broome | Adem Bona | Andre Drummond
Trendon Watford | Eric Gordon | Paul George
George's struggles in his first season with the Sixers were layered. And those struggles were just on the offensive end; George's defense was surprisingly stellar for much of the season. But at no point during 2024-25 did George actually produce like a star-caliber player. His scoring upside was almost nonexistent, and it stemmed from an inability to explode past defenders off the dribble:
Paul George's scoring upside in his first season with the Sixers was capped significantly by a lack of off-the-dribble burst. In 41 games in 2024-25, George scored over 30 points only three times, never scoring more than 33 points in a game. pic.twitter.com/iWbt5Wmj98
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) March 18, 2025
George is one of the most gifted shooters in recent NBA history, so he is always going to take more mid-range jumpers than what would be recommended for the average player. But as George struggled more and more getting downhill, his shot diet grew increasingly unhealthy. Only about one of every 10 field goal attempts George took came within three feet of the rim, while three out of every 10 came between 10 feet and the three-point line. It was a bad mix, noticeably worse than his usual shot profile in the NBA:
| Category | with Thunder (2017-2019) | with Clippers (2019-2024) | with Sixers (2024-25) |
| Average shot distance (ft.) | 16.3 | 16.9 | 18.0 |
| % of FGA between 0-3 ft. | .204 | .150 | .105 |
| % of FGA between3-10 ft. | .094 | .132 | .125 |
| % of FGA between 10-16 ft. | .110 | .126 | .140 |
| % of FGA between 16 ft.-3P | .129 | .143 | .160 |
| % of FGA from 3P | .462 | .448 | .470 |
George's mid-range efficiency was way down, and it made sense: defenses saw that George was incapable of creating advantages off the dribble, so they sat on his mid-range pull-up jumpers. Shots that used to come against fading defenders suddenly were being contested tightly by defenders tied to George's hip. He struggled to capitalize on mismatches like this one:
Paul George fails to create any separation off the dribble, then turns the ball over: pic.twitter.com/kJdyzJveFb
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) December 22, 2024
The obvious answer to the question above would be that, yes, this downtick in explosiveness is permanent. George turned 35 years old in May and comes with an enormous amount of mileage. George, the last man standing from his draft class, also has a history of leg injuries.
There is another explanation: George's left knee, which he injured in the preseason and again just a handful of games into his regular season. George's season officially ended due to a groin injury, but he also received treatment on that knee after he had been ruled out for the remainder of the campaign.
Maybe that explains why George lost some juice last season. The issue: that knee is already in bad shape again, as George suffered an injury there in July which required an arthroscopic procedure. An update on George should be nearing with training camp beginning in less than a week.
MORE: Deep dive on George's disappointing debut season with Sixers
Whether injuries played a part or not, George did not play nearly well enough last season. His efficiency marks went from the usual pristine to completely subpar, and while that is to some degree a reflection of worse shots, it also turned out to stem from brutal variance.
George may have lost a step athletically. Perhaps his limitations as a ball-handler and playmaker are causes for concern. But if there is one reliable skill George has on offense, it remains shot-making. And on open or wide open three-point shots in his first season in Philadelphia, George posted middling percentages. Typically, he has been particularly excellent when left unguarded:
| Season | Open 3-pointers | Wide open 3-pointers | Combined |
| 2020-21 (LAC) | 85-205 (41.5%) | 52-103 (50.5%) | 137-308 (44.4%) |
| 2021-22 (LAC) | 52-141 (36.9%) | 17-38 (44.7%) | 69-179 (38.5%) |
| 2022-23 (LAC) | 88-226 (38.9%) | 32-86 (37.2%) | 120-312 (38.4%) |
| 2023-24 (LAC) | 118-284 (41.5%) | 54-124 (43.5%) | 172-408 (42.1%) |
| 2020-2024 (LAC) | 343-856 (40.0%) | 155-351 (44.1%) | 498-1,207 (41.2) |
| 2024-25 (PHI) | 54-145 (37.2%) | 20-58 (34.5%) | 74-203 (36.4%) |
"Frankly, just looking at the data... I mean, he was very low percentage on very open corner threes, stuff like that," Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey said in April. "That will definitely bounce back. Sometimes, players go through that. I had Eric Gordon one year in Houston [and] he won the Three-Point Contest and then shot 31 percent the next year. But we all know Paul can shoot."
MORE: "What the heck is going on with Quentin Grimes?"
George gets much closer to his previous statistical norms as a spot-up shooter, which makes it easy for him to have a better season than he did in 2024-25. But his inability to break down defenses off the dribble remains, limiting the amount of offense he can create on his own. George will clearly be a good NBA player, but he will remain far less productive than what one would expect from a player making over $51 million.
At this point, the above prediction feels like an optimistic one — it certainly contains more hope for George's prospects throughout the remainder of his contract than many of the respondents of PhillyVoice's Sixers survey have had so far. But it is hard to feel anything other than that such an outcome would remain an enormous disappointment for a player as accomplished as George owed such significant cash:
| Season | Salary |
| 2025-26 | $51,666,090 |
| 2026-27 | $54,126,380 |
| 2027-28 | $56,586,670 (player option) |
The reality is that this is where the Sixers are with George now. Chasing the star upside he severely lacked in 2024-25 may be a fool's errand. If George is merely a very good two-way starting wing, his contract will be a real obstacle as the Sixers try to build an optimal roster. But it will not completely prevent them from doing so — as long as the only player on the team paid more than George steps up.
