NEW YORK -- Seated in the first row of an empty Barclays Center, Paul George nodded his head in the direction of his right leg.
Yeah, that right leg.
He examines it before every game, has a short conversation with himself and plays.
At times, almost miraculously, better than ever.
"Every time I step out on the floor, I look down at my leg," George said Wednesday at the Indiana Pacers' shootaround before beginning a short, two-game road trip against the Nets. "I’ve still got the scars, still got a little bone protruding out. I just remember the journey, the rehab that it took to get to this point, and every game I’ve been playing. It’s been great. I didn’t think I’d get to this point so soon."
Nobody did.
The night it happened, a steamy August night in 2014 at a Team USA scrimmage in Las Vegas, his USA Basketball teammates cringed, cried and consoled each other. Not long after, Kevin Durant announced he was leaving the team ahead of the FIBA World Cup in Spain. Later, Durant admitted that George's injury -- an open fracture of the tibia-fibula sustained when he landed on a misplaced basket stanchion -- was one of the factors in his decision.
The Americans won gold anyway, of course, but the price was high. The NBA lost one of the game's rising stars, and nobody knew when he'd come back.
If at all.
"Every time we go through struggles, we kind of connect and just talk about, 'Look, you didn’t know if you were ever going to play again,'" Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. "'And if you were going to play again, were you going to have a severe limp and all this stuff?' He looks great. It’s a blessing he’s back out there."
George missed all but the final six games last season, and it was stunning that he was even back for those. He got a full summer to continue his rehab, defying even the most optimistic expectations of what he'd be when he returned to the floor full-time.
"The biggest thing was, it wasn’t any ligaments, it wasn’t a tendon," George said. "It was just bone. And from what I learned, bone grows back and grows stronger. So I wasn’t really concerned about getting back to where I was. I just knew it was going to take some time. That was the only concern that I had, how long was it going to take."
Answer: Not long.
George, 25, stunned the basketball world and himself when he rampaged through the first month of the season with 29.5 points, 8.2 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game on 49 percent shooting to earn player of the month honors in November.
His production has tailed off since, owing more to the law of averages than any lingering weakness in his surgically repaired leg. No matter what prism through which you view George's comeback, he's quite simply a marvel.
"It was just a lot of stuff built up, sitting out a whole year and really taking two summers to train and get better," he said. "I felt like that was the reason why I had such a hot start. It’s like someone who’s been grounded for so long and they finally get to go outside and play."
It was something else, too. While George waited patiently (and worked tirelessly) to get his leg strength and stability back, he worked on two aspects of his game that have been on full display during his comeback: shooting and ballhandling.
"My whole focus was on shooting and being able to get to my shots," George said. "Then once the legs start to go and the body starts to get a little tired, that obviously goes away. So I'm still working on the mid-range, how to get to post-up areas, just how to make the game easier for me."
With so much uncertainty around George and the loss of David West to San Antonio during free agency, it's difficult to view the Pacers as anything but a feel-good story. They're 25-23, currently in the eighth spot in the surprisingly deep East but only two games behind Boston for the 3-seed.
Yet there have been instances in which George has questioned his role -- first, during the summer, when he bristled at Vogel's decision to slide him to the power forward spot and play more small lineups. ("Well, he don't make the decisions around here," team president Larry Bird said of George.)
Then, after a stretch of seemingly getting his wish at small forward with the Pacers getting more mileage out of rookie Myles Turner, George expressed confusion about what Vogel wanted from him in the offense following a 111-106 overtime loss to Cleveland on Monday night.
Why all the drama?
"With the big lineup, being much more of a scorer with that group and then with the smaller lineups, being a creator," George said. "We’ve got a lot of shooters and we’ve got guys that can make plays. So [being] another playmaker out there with those three other guys that are making plays on the perimeter, I think, is more the role that I take. And when we’ve got two bigs, being more of a scorer is the role that I take because I’ve got guys who can screen and set me up."
What George is lacking, he said, is consistency between the two. Some of that is tactical based on the opposing lineup. Some of it has been injuries.
"We’ve had so many different lineups that it’s hard to get a chemistry and get a feel for one another, regardless of how much practice time you have," George said. "In games, it’s so much different."
Considering there was a time not long ago when George wasn't sure when his next game would be, these are good problems to have.
On the floor at the Barclays Center, I asked Vogel how often he allows himself to step back and appreciate how remarkable it is that George is not just out here, but in many ways, he's better than he was before.
"Every day," he said. "Every day."
