It’s been eleven days since Indiana Pacers star Paul George sustained a compound fracture in his right leg which will cause him to miss…a LOT OF TIME. This devastating blow for the Pacers occurred during a scrimmage of USA Basketball. And now it again puts the value of these meaningless summer exhibitions into question.
What is the upside to Team USA basketball? The downside is obvious: look at George and the basketball franchise based in Indianapolis.
Yesterday, Pacers Coach Frank Vogel and Team President Larry Bird met the media today to discuss moving on without George. A clueless reporter asked a dumb question about whether or not the team will put a patch on their uniform honoring Paul George. Bird gave a hilarious response to the poor query. And gave the press conference some badly needed perspective.
“patch? He’s still alive! I don’t think will do that. We’ll just pat him on the back every once in awhile,” Larry Bird said.
The gruesome injury, combined with all the summer commitments of their NBA stars, will force the Kentucky Wildcats to cancel this summer’s charity exhibition all-star game.
Head coach John Calipari said in a statement: “Unfortunately, due to a number of circumstances out of our control, we are going to have to cancel this year’s game.”
A number of players were unavailable for the event including, DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis who are participating with Team USA, and John Wall, who was committed to a function in China.
Oh by the way, Davis said at a public appearance in Chicago yesterday that 1.) Beyonce is his future wife and that 2.) the Pelicans are going to the NBA playoffs (details here) So kudos to him for dreaming big on both counts.
Back to the U.K. alumni game, the cancellation is out of respect to Paul George and many players’ uneasiness this summer as a result of his injury at the Team USA camp in Las Vegas in early August, said a school spokesperson in a press release this morning.
“We consider the alumni game to be a first-class experience, but without the presence of several of our key alums who had previous commitments, including to USA Basketball, we didn’t feel we could meet the standard that we have set for fans,” Calipari continued.
“We still had enough commitments to field our team, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to secure enough members for the non-UK team.”
Ticket holders the to All-Star exhibition will receive a full refund. Anthony Davis is doing a couple public appearances in Chicago today, of which I should be able to get his reaction this news. Check back later tonight, hopefully I will have comment from Davis here.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports and Yahoo! He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world. He’s also a special contributor to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Banks has been featured in numerous media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, NBC, CBS, the History Channel and more. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)