A horrible incident occurred in today's team USA blue vs white basketball scrimmage.
Paul George underwent an operation on an open fracture in Las Vegas, USA Basketball said Saturday.
Credit
John Locher/Associated Press
A horrible incident occurred in today's team USA blue vs white basketball scrimmage.
The severity of Paul George’s injury — the sight of his right leg bent grotesquely — has sent a jolt through the N.B.A.
USA Basketball issued a statement overnight Friday indicating that George, an Indiana Pacers
forward participating in a national team training camp in Las Vegas,
had undergone successful surgery to repair a fracture of the bones in
his lower right leg sustained in a scrimmage.
Larry
Bird, the president of basketball operations for the Pacers, said
Saturday that it was premature to speculate on how long George’s
recovery might take, but that he was likely to miss the coming season.
It
was a devastating setback for George, 24, one of the league’s brightest
young stars. And it created a new flash point in the discussion about
the value of N.B.A. players’ participation in off-season international
basketball competitions.
Players
generally like to represent their country, but many will opt out if
their contract status in the N.B.A. becomes uncertain. Coaches extol the
virtues of learning and improving in international settings. The league
appreciates the global exposure of its players, though it gets few
tangible benefits. Team owners worry that their players, in whom they
have invested a lot of money, will be hurt.
“There’s so many angles to consider,” said Jon Barry, a former player who is an analyst at ESPN.
The
United States team is preparing for the FIBA World Cup, formerly called
the World Championship, a 28-team tournament that begins this month in
Spain and whose winner automatically qualifies for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
“Nothing
has given me more satisfaction or been more meaningful than having USA
on my shirt,” said P. J. Carlesimo, who has coached four N.B.A. teams
and has worked with the national program since the 1980s.
Carlesimo
said players who went through a national team training camp often
improved. He said the camp setting was more controlled and thus safer
than the pickup games, charity events and personal training sessions
many players take part in during the summer.
He
noted, as have others, that no other major injury had been sustained by
a player in a USA Basketball setting since the first Dream Team was
formed in 1992.
Several
officials with N.B.A. teams said Saturday that George’s injury,
sustained when he leapt to contest a fast-break layup and struck the
base of a backboard stanchion, was a freak incident, though it was
unclear whether the stanchion had been properly positioned.
Barry
said the N.B.A., from a marketing standpoint, had more to lose than to
gain from the Olympics because fans expected the United States national
team to dominate. He said he understood how an owner spending tens of
millions of dollars on a player might be wary of seeing him play
competitive games away from the team.
One
such owner is Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks, a longtime critic of
how the league approaches international competitions. The subject of
altering the system — including instituting an age limit for N.B.A.
players in the Olympics or having the league host its own global
competition — gathered steam during the 2012 Games in London, but Cuban
said Saturday that discussions had not developed in any substantial way.
Cuban
said the Olympics made significant revenue from N.B.A. players. He
pointed out that players in all sports, not just basketball, often
declined to participate in international tournaments when they were free
agents, or were about to be, out of fear that they would be injured.
That, he said, was the smart financial decision.
Cuban said the only parties left financially vulnerable in such situations were the league and its clubs.
“We
are so stupid that we are willing to commit what amounts to more than a
billion dollars in salaries to help the Olympics line their pockets so
we can pretend that the Olympic Games are about national pride,” Cuban
said.
On Saturday, Bird expressed strong support for the national team.
“We
still support USA Basketball and believe in the N.B.A.’s goals of
exposing our game, our teams and players worldwide,” he said in a
statement. “This is an extremely unfortunate injury that occurred on a
highly visible stage, but could also have occurred anytime, anywhere.”
Bird
said that it was inappropriate to speculate on the future of the
Pacers’ roster and that the focus should be on George’s health and
recovery. But the injury is a blow to a team that is among the elite in
the Eastern Conference. George, a two-time All-Star, averaged 21.7
points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.9 steals per game last season.
One
longtime N.B.A. agent, who asked for anonymity while discussing a
player he did not represent, said, “Paul is so important to the Pacers
that I am not sure they can make up for his loss in any way.”
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