What Paul George can still give the Sixers — and what might be a thing of the past

Paul George didn’t waste any time in his return to NBA action on Monday night, taking just 36 seconds to block a James Harden shot and turn a quick give-and-go with Tyrese Maxey into a catch-and-shoot three-pointer for his first made basket since March 4. It was a much-missed glimpse into the do-it-all player that PG had been billed as when he first came to the 76ers as a major free-agency coup in the summer of 2024 — a sight that was all too rare with George limited to 41 games in a disappointing Philly debut.

Of course, the rest of George’s night wasn’t quite as smooth: He scored six additional points and went 1-for-8 from the field (0-for-3 from deep) after drilling that early jumper, while the Sixers were outscored by 12 in his remaining minutes — though he did grab seven rebounds and dish three assists in his 21 minutes of court time. All told, it was roughly what you could have expected out of a 35-year-old who hadn’t suited up in 259 days.

» READ MORE: Paul George 'felt good' after his season debut for the Sixers

Because of this — along with the fact that Joel Embiid was out — it’s tough to draw too many sweeping conclusions from George’s season debut. But between what we saw on Monday and the general profile of similar players at this age, we do have some clues about what PG might have left in the tank this season, when he’s available — which is always a question mark — and how it could help the Sixers improve at both ends while lightening the load on Maxey.

For one thing, it’s already clear George is going to get plenty of touches even while coexisting alongside Maxey’s ongoing development into a huge scorer. His usage rate on Monday was 28%, which was higher than both his figure last season (23.5%) and what it was during his final season with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2023-24 (26.6%). Along the way, he launched some threes, got to the line plenty, and made a few plays as a ballhandler and passer as well. Despite easing himself back into live play, George is still a future Hall of Famer who commands plenty of attention from opponents.

And the Sixers do need a guy like that. Aside from Maxey, who had a sky-high 39.1% usage rate on Monday and carries a 30.8 share — 15th-highest in the NBA — this season overall, the Sixers haven’t had anyone else who can consistently initiate and/or finish possessions when Embiid is sidelined. Not including Maxey, Embiid, and George, the only other Sixers player (in at least 20 total minutes) with a usage above the league average of 20% is Quentin Grimes at 21.5%. Usage rate estimates the percentage of a team’s possessions a player “uses” while on the court, showing how much the offense is centered on them.

To be sure, others have been efficient within their roles. Kelly Oubre Jr., Andre Drummond and Trendon Watford are all comfortably above the league’s average true shooting percentage, while Justin Edwards and Dominick Barlow have made great use of their chances when their number gets called.

But the Sixers offense has been notably top-heavy in its distribution of plays toward just a small number of players so far this season. And we can see this if we look at each Sixer player’s share of total team plays (FG and FT attempts, assists and turnovers), tracking how concentrated those plays are among a given number of players.

For instance, Maxey has personally been responsible for 26.1% of his team’s total plays this year, the highest rate in the league. Maxey and VJ Edgecombe have combined for 40.9% of plays, which is the highest share for any teammate tandem in the league. Maxey, Edgecombe, Grimes, and Oubre have collectively shared 66.8% of Philly’s plays, the highest rate for any quartet of players in the league … and so forth:

This isn’t inherently a bad thing, and one needs only to look back upon the 2022-23 Sixers to find a team with the fourth-best offense in the league despite a disproportionately large share of possessions going to Embiid, Harden, Maxey and Tobias Harris. But Maxey in particular is being asked to carry a massive load so far this season, as one of just 10 players across the league with a usage rate and an assist rate north of 30%.

So anything George can do to alleviate that burden — and not merely be an expensive role player for the 2025-26 Sixers — would do wonders for an offense that ranks 11th in the league efficiency-wise but may not be able to sustain that level while asking Maxey to play 40.4 minutes per game at his current level of usage.

Can George do that, though, given his age and injury profile?

Based on his percentile grades relative to the league last season, PG had already slipped from a 95th-percentile to a 49th-percentile player overall, with notable drops in his true shooting (77th to 19th) and turnover percentiles (67th to 17th). If we look for the most similar players by skills at a similar age, George’s top comps went from Manu Ginóbili, Clyde Drexler, Kawhi Leonard, Michael Jordan, and Eddie Jones in 2023-24 to Stephen Jackson, Bobby Jackson and old versions of Dwyane Wade, Scottie Pippen, and Vince Carter in 2024-25.

That doesn’t exactly inspire tremendous confidence in what he can do this season, even when healthy, although Pippen (as a Trail Blazer) in 2002 and Carter (as a Maverick) in 2012 were more effective than we probably remember them being. The average themes across George’s top-20 comps from last year as they got a year older were that they scored less (down 9 percentile points in usage and 7 points in per-possession scoring), though perhaps a bit more efficiently, had fewer assists (down 6 points) and were less of a factor in rebounding (down 4 points), steals (down 6 points) and defense overall (down 8 points).

Those changes would leave George further diminished as an aging star wing, if still a useful one for his above-average scoring, passing, and defense. And based on what we saw in his season debut Monday, that’s probably about what George’s potential is for the season at large. He may not be the MVP candidate of his prime nor even the All-Star he was for L.A. in 2024, but he can still provide the Sixers with plenty of things they need if he can stay on the court.