Paul George says he's been avoiding contact on his surgically-repaired shoulders

Paul George got off to a blistering offensive start in his first two games with the L.A. Clippers, setting a number of franchise and NBA records with his scoring output. The Clippers played two of the worst defenses in the league in those two matchups (the Pelicans and the Hawks), but George had a simple answer for why his offense looked so smooth out of the gate. 

"New shoulders. I can’t say nothing else to that," George said after a Nov. 16 win over Atlanta. "I got new shoulders. They haven’t been this healthy in a long time."

The new shoulders certainly seemed like a reasonable explanation for George's cleaner shooting stroke. The former Oklahoma City wing had a slash line of 44.8/39.8/84.4 (field goals/threes/free throws) before suffering a major shoulder injury on Feb. 26 last season. Though he battled through without missing much time, George's shooting percentages dropped to 40.4/34.8/82.2 afterwards. 

George aggravated the injury during the last week of the regular season, and it noticeably impacted his playoff performance. 

"It was a problem – and it was both of them," Thunder coach Billy Donovan said about George's shoulders before the Nov. 18 matchup this season. "He fought through it. He never said a word about it. He never complained about it. I think it speaks to his character and his toughness as a competitor that when he steps across the lines of play, he's going to do just that: just play." 

After his scorching start, George has had some recent shooting struggles as the Clippers have split their last four games. He's shooting 31.8% from the field and 28% from beyond the arc, well below even his post-injury marks in Oklahoma City, to the point where the Clippers have been outscored with George on the floor during this stretch. 

Doc Rivers said he thought that George was just missing shots, like any other shooter going through a slump, and blamed the team's offensive execution for not putting George in good enough positions. George, however, had a more concerning opinion about his downturn. 

"I think it’s just getting comfortable out there, getting comfortable using my body, I think being more comfortable in my head, in my mind, attacking, using my shoulders, being aggressive with contact," he said. "I just watched a lot of clips and I've kind of been shying away from the contact, so it’s not putting me in positions where I've been very successful scoring, so I just gotta get over that hump."

"Last year I would say before the injury started, I was finishing through contact, finishing through defenders," George continued. "This year, I've been shying away from the contact. It's just getting it through my head that I'm fine with the physicality."

A closer look at George's offensive production that he is settling for jumpers a bit more often than he did last season. He is taking three fewer shots per game as a Clipper, mostly because of his lower minute total, but he's still taking about the same number of 3-pointers. 

George's drives are down from 10.0 last season to 8.2 per game this year. As he indicated, George is avoiding contact. He drew fouls on 10.4% of drives last year, but only 7.4% this year, which means he's earning 1.2 free throws off of these plays compared to 2.1 per game last year.

As a whole, George is drawing shooting fouls 25% less often than last year, even though he's making free throws at a higher rate than he has in his entire career. That's the unfortunate part for George and for the Clippers – his shooting stroke looks great since the surgeries. His percentages are 43.1/39.4/91.3 this season, but he doesn't appear to trust his body to do much beyond shoot. 

On defense, George is seemingly more confident in his shoulders, or he's just more able to act on instinct. One of his hallmarks as a perimeter defender has been his willingness to fight through screens. Theoretically, being uncomfortable with his body would limit that ability, but he's embraced the contact on the defensive end. Currently George ranks in the 98th percentile defending actions off screens, limiting opponents to 0.38 points per possession. 

The Clippers knew that Paul George would require an adjustment period given that he was recuperating from two offseason surgeries. They have a deep team, and another superstar, to account for exactly this type of situation. But in order to be a championship-caliber team, George needs to be closer to the level he was with the Thunder, when he finished third in MVP voting a year ago. 

At this moment, George doesn't feel like that player himself, but at least he's acknowledged his shortcomings and is committed to resolving them. There is plenty of time for George to regain confidence in his body and recapture his all-NBA form. The Clippers identity in this current iteration has been a physical and scrappy team; they need George to embody that in his play.