On a day when the Sixers organization was supposed to be in a celebratory mood as they recognize the 2000-01 team that reached the NBA Finals, Saturday started, instead, with shocking news as forward Paul George was suspended by the NBA for 25 games for violation of the league's anti-drug policy. ESPN's Shams Charania was the first to report.
George — who just tied the team record for three-pointers in a game on Tuesday with nine — released a statement to ESPN that said: "Over the past few years, I've discussed the importance of mental health, and in the course of recently seeking treatment for an issue on my own, I made the mistake of taking an improper medication. I take full responsibility for my actions and apologize to the Sixers organization, my teammates and the Philly fans for my poor decision making during this process. I am focused on using this time to make sure that my mind and body are in the best condition to help the team when I return."
The Sixers will have 10 games remaining when George will be allowed to return to the team. How they will cope without him becomes the major dilemma for coach Nick Nurse at a time when all appeared to be reaching a state of normalcy with the team.
"I just spoke to him a little bit ago," Nurse said. :I'm not going to share a personal conversation with you. He's still part of the team. Can't play the games but still allowed in the facility and practice and all that stuff. I just told him we care about him, we're here to help him, the organization is - in any way possible. We'll try to get past this as soon as we can to get through it the best that we can. And then go from there."
Star Joel Embiid is returning to his healthy form and may soon be able to play in back-to-back games. Tyrese Maxey is establishing himself as one of the best guards in the league and the team seems to have hit gold in rookie VJ Edgecombe.
Add to that a recovered Kelly Oubre, Jr., and Nurse seemed to have his starting five healthy for the first time in a long time. And now comes a 25-game period of shuffling lineups and rotations again.
"(I'm) obviously disappointed for sure," said Nurse. "Those guys that have been playing this year, there's a bunch of them and we have to figure out who's going to replace some of the things he does, positionally and defensively and shots and all those things like that. I think there's a number of guys there to do it. That's where we are. We've been in this next man up mentality for a while and we're going to have to dig in and do it again."
Heading into Saturday's game against the New Orleans Pelicans, the Sixers are 26-21 and in the sixth spot in the Eastern Conference, three and a half games out of the two spot.
Monday, they will start a five-game West Coast road swing that will begin a string of games that will have them on the road for eight of their next 10. The timing of the suspension couldn't have been worse.
For the season, the 35-year-old George is averaging 16 points and 5.1 rebounds. He scored a team-high 32 points in Tuesday's win over Milwaukee, in which he hit the aforementioned franchise-tying record nine three-pointers.
"I feel like he's played pretty well this year, borderline very well," Nurse said of George. "It's such a critical role for us and kind of slotted in as a really good role player on this particular team. I think he's done what we've needed him to do, but I think there's been a lot of unfortunate things. Injuries, obviously. The team's whole situation last year, obviously. Couple injuries early this year.
"He's been really fun to coach, a really good teammate. His teammates really like him. He's showing some great leadership. He's played well and slotted into a position where he seems okay. He was doing some things at a really high level."
It would appear that Nurse will plug in one of Dominick Barlow or Jabari Walker into George's starting spot. Or, because the team has been struggling tremendously rebounding the basketball, perhaps Adem Bona or even Andre Drummond could be inserted. The loss of George also diminishes the team on the defensive side of the ball, as he is one of their best on-ball defenders.
"If you want to kind of divide up some things that Paul does, one of the things he does is scores a bit," Nurse said. "There's shots there. Somebody's got to fill in and take those shots and I imagine Kelly's played that role for us a lot already. I imagine some of those shots, or a good portion of those shots, will shift back back over to him. I think it puts a number of guys in play here. Some guys we have some idea of what they can do. I think we're still learning about some of them.
"It puts Barlow, Walker, Watford, Edwards, McCain, Oubre, Q, that's a bunch of guys and we have to figure out who's going to filter where and I think it's always going to be like it always is - who are we playing, what do the matchups look like, who's playing well at the time, what combinations look good together. All those guys I just mentioned have gotten decent amount of minutes and we kind of know what they are or where they're headed and where we'd like them to be and what role they can fill. It starts tonight."
George would be scheduled to return on March 25, when the Sixers host the Chicago Bulls. They will have 10 games remaining in the regular season when George returns. There will be two sets of back-to-backs during that time, which will certainly limit how much Nurse will be able to set a rotation if Embiid or George can't play on consecutive days.
His suspension pretty much erases any chance the Sixers may have had of making a trade for Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo. George almost certainly would have been the big salary the team would have been willing to use in a deal.
The trade deadline is Thursday. We will see how the suspension may change the plans for Daryl Morey and company.
