Paul George, the Clippers’ lone All Star in the 2023 season, was sidelined the last nine games of the regular season with a knee injury. His podcast, Podcast P, announced on Twitter yesterday that the episode dropping this morning would contain an injury update on Paul George.
However, while the podcast hasn’t dropped yet, Shams Charania of the Athletic may have beaten Podcast P to the punch, as he dropped this update on Paul George this morning:
This is, of course, incredibly vague. “Sidelined to begin the first round” seems fairly optimistic, actually, upon glance. After all, that opens the door for a return later in the first round. The most “logical” return has been guessed by many to be Game 3, the first Clippers’ home game of the postseason, which is at least 10 days out.
On the other hand, there is no estimated return date or timeline given, and if the Clippers or PG were confident in one, it probably would have been stated. Additionally, it what now might be some deleted video, Shams mentioned earlier in the morning that to his knowledge, Paul George has not started on scrimmaging or even contact work. If that intel is correct, and maybe it’s not given the later update, it would be difficult to expect Paul George back in the first round at all.
The vagueness is further compounded by “making tangible progress from his knee injury”. While this is all positive – progress, no setbacks, not ruled out from the first round – the vagueness in and of itself is again not super promising.
To sum up, this update on Paul George is a fairly positive one, in that he’s making progress and it seems like a return at least some point this postseason will be possible. When he might make his return is still up in the air, but we will continue to keep you posted as we receive more updates.
