Indiana Pacers' Paul George is taken off the court in Las Vegas. Photograph: John Locher/AP
The good news, if one can call it that, is that the Indiana Pacers' Paul George is recovering from surgery to repair the open tibia and fibula fracture he suffered in the USA men's basketball team's intrasquad practice game on Friday night.
George is out for Team USA, quite obviously, and will most likely miss all of the 2014-15 season too. It speaks volumes about how bad his injury looked, both live and on replay, that this feels something close to a best-case scenario.
While the accident looked potentially career-ending at the moment it occurred, reports on Saturday said surgery was successful and added that George is expected to make a full recovery. That doesn't mean, however, that one of the most disturbing injuries ever seen on a basketball court won't have reverberations far beyond its effect on the Pacers' standing in the Eastern Conference next year.
On Friday night the focus - with the exception of a few particularly callous individuals - was rightly on George's health. After Saturday's as-good-as-could-be-expected news, look for the conversation to move away from the athlete and towards how his injury happened, what can be done to prevent similar accidents and how this might affect the NBA's stance on international play.
Team USA was participating in a split-squad practice game at Las Vegas's Thomas & Mack Center, as a warm-up for the Fiba World Cup, a lead-up event to the 2016 Olympics. In the fourth quarter, George was chasing a potential James Harden rebound when his his right leg got caught in a stanchion which was noticeably closer to the playing field than it would have been on a regular NBA court.
George's leg was at a distressingly sharp angle when the rest of his body landed. In seconds, cheers and applause gave way to silence and worried murmurs as medical staff and team-mates, many in tortured disbelief, attended to the stricken player. Officials called the game early.
That stanchion's placement, along with other potential safety issues, will almost certainly be investigated. Las Vegas has been hosting professional basketball events for years, in the hope of being granted an NBA franchise. Apparently there have been issues with its irregular court before, so one imagines the NBA will now demand serious changes.
Of course, it's not really fair to say that George's injury happened because of the court - it was an accident. Athletics is all about pushing a body's limits; sometimes when you push, you stumble.
Seeing George's accident live, it was impossible not to think about the Louisville guard Kevin Ware, who suffered a similarly horrific injury in front of a big TV audience during the 2013 NCAA tournament. In an Elite Eight game against Duke, Ware broke his leg in what ended up being a Louisville victory on the way to the title. Louisville said they won the championship for Ware.
It's difficult, though, to compare George's situation to that of Ware's or even Derrick Rose's ACL tear in the Chicago Bulls' first playoff game in 2012. Both of those injuries happened while their teams were aiming to win a championship. George suffered his injury in a practice game.
More pertinently, it was a practice game to prepare for an international tournament. These weeks in late summer are among the few stretches on the calendar that give NBA athletes time to rest, especially since the postseason ended barely a month and a half ago. Just having players on the court increases the odds that something like the Paul George injury could happen.
If you own an NBA team, you know there is always a chance you're going to lose your star player - and George is very much the face of the Pacers. It's just that when it happens, you don't want it to be while they're helping someone else on your dime.
Franchises have, therefore, become increasingly reluctant to let national teams borrow their best players, to the point where the NBA has contemplated enforcing restrictions in future Olympics.
Players applaud as medical staff carry their injured team-mate off. Photograph: Stephen R Sylvanie/USA Today Sports
On Saturday, the Pacers released a statement which expressed sympathy for George but also confirmed their support for the international game.
'We still support USA Basketball,' the statement said, 'and believe in the NBA's goals of exposing our game, our teams and players worldwide. This is an extremely unfortunate injury that occurred on a highly visible stage, but could also have occurred anytime, anywhere.'
Still - expect this conversation to get louder over the next few days, if not months or even years. While it may not seem fair to prevent NBA players from playing for their countries, to do so will be in the best interest of the owners - and they tend to get their way.
Owners know that the athletes are their biggest assets. They won't soon forget what happened to Paul George's leg on Friday night.
Post By http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/aug/02/paul-george-horror-injury-international-basketball
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