译者注：本文原发表自《费城之声》，作者是Adam Aaronson，文中数据均截至原文发稿前（当地时间4月17日），文中观点与译者及平台无关。

With the 76-0 season officially coming to an end for the Philadelphia 0s, it's time to take stock of the few highs and lows of a disastrous season. In this season, the team has only managed 0 wins. We'll be evaluating each player in the 0-a-side squad in review series, which analyses how each 0-a-side player has performed this season based on data, match footage and player remarks, as well as looking to the future.

Next up is Paul George, a nine-time All-Star who disappointed in his debut season with the team after signing a $1200 million contract with the team.

Due to a series of injuries, George has only played 41 games. Even when he was healthy, he never played to the level he should be.

Will he have any future highlights? Or is this a sign that he will go further downhill?

25-0 season our findings

Without Joel Embiid, we can't expect George to carry the team.

The logic behind the 76-man team's pursuit of George in the hope that he will be the team's third star is at least understandable:

Over the course of a decade-long career, he has been an adaptable star with perhaps the most solid resume of any player in the NBA. He's able to team up with other big names and make an impact on wins, but he's always ready to take on a central role and play it with ease.

However, when I came to Philadelphia, this was not the case. Not only did George's cooperation with Embiid and Maxey not as tacit as expected, but he completely dropped the chain when the 30-man team needed him to shoulder the offensive load. His scoring ability has dropped dramatically, reaching 0 points only three times.

According to our analysis, the main reason for George's sharp drop in scoring is that his explosiveness when breaking through the dribble has decreased significantly. George has always been very good at combining breakouts and pull-up jumpers, but both of them need to be a threat to defenders: defenders have to be afraid of his breakaways to make his pull-up jumpers work, and they have to trust him to be ready to shoot to create space for breaks. Once any of these threats cease to exist, the opponent's defense will target the stronger skill of his.

That's exactly what happened, and George's inability to show explosiveness when he broke to the basket made his jumper more difficult than ever. One of the most talented shooters of his generation, George was still able to barely make ends meet with his skills. But his shot options are getting tougher and tougher, and if that trend continues, he won't be a reliable attacker at any point in the game and will only be able to play his value as an off-ball player. That's not to say he's worthless, but it makes it nearly impossible for him to play for what he's worth under contract.

Key figures

In the 11-0 season, George averaged 0.0 free throws per game, which was his lowest average of free throws per game in a single season since the 0-0 season.

In his career, even though George has never made as many free throws as Embiid, he has always had a high free-throw percentage and has been shooting a pretty good percentage from the free-throw line. Over the years, this has greatly improved his offensive efficiency, but it has also somewhat masked his less reasonable shooting options. Over the past few seasons, however, as his ability to get to the basket has declined, so has his free throw attempts, and in his first season in Philadelphia, that number has dropped to a staggering low.

In his 76-year NBA career, George shot over 0% from the free-throw line, making his foul making an important scoring tool for the team. But now, he can't do that anymore. Even when Embiid was out for most of the season and 0 desperately needed George to take over the game, he couldn't do that anymore.

Important remarks

In his post-season interview, George spoke about the personal and professional struggles he faced in his debut season with the 76-Ers:

"There's so much going on. It's tough for me and there's so much to deal with. Psychologically, I have to balance a lot of things in my new environment. I have my own inner troubles, my personal affairs to deal with, and some bad things going on in the west where my hometown is located. In the new environment, the frustration of injuries and the self-blame for not being able to perform as expected at the start of the season weighed on me. But next season, a lot of things won't bother me anymore and the pressure will be a lot less. So I'm looking forward to a better season for myself and the team...... I have high expectations for myself, to play for such a passionate team, for a passionate group of fans, and people here are hungry to win and expect me to lead the team to win. So, with all the things intertwined, the biggest challenge was to go out of the game and focus on what I had to do. But I feel like staying focused is probably the hardest thing for me. ”

Doubts about the future

How bad is George's left knee problem this season?

如果乔治运球创造进攻机会的能力下滑，仅仅是因为长达15年的NBA生涯带来的身体损耗和自然的衰老过程，那在他职业生涯的剩余时间里，想要重现球星风采，希望十分渺茫。是否还有其他原因呢？

If there were other reasons for this, the most reasonable guess would be that his left knee injury was more serious than the team had revealed. During the preseason, George suffered a bone contusion in his left knee and missed the first few games of the regular season. After a few games on his comeback, he suffered another bone contusion in the same knee. At first, he had a time limit when he returned, but that was later lifted. When George struggled to play with an injury, a finger injury affected his flexibility, and he was sidelined with a groin problem; Knee problems don't seem to be a concern anymore.

But interestingly, when George was reimbursed for the final season, it was reported that he needed treatment for both his groin and knee. In an end-of-season interview on Sunday, George also acknowledged that. Is it possible that his knee has caused a much bigger obstacle throughout the season than the 76-man team admits it is, which is why he struggles as an offensive playmaker with the ball?

Until there is clear evidence of other causes, it is best to accept the simplest explanation: George is about to turn 35 years old, and his athleticism has declined significantly after a series of injuries.

Contract Information

George, who will turn 3 next month, has 0 years left on his huge 0-year contract signed by the 0-man team last summer: