Paul George has a unique opportunity to prove that the rumors of him being past his prime have been greatly exaggerated. However, even George's biggest optimists assumed that the Boston Celtics would put George, an injury-prone player, on a minutes restriction like the one they put Al Horford on in his last three years with the team, i.e., rest him on back-to-backs.
However, since the trade, there has been no confirmation that that's the plan for Boston. In fact, the vibe from Celtics Media Day was that, despite the speculation, George won't be missing any time if he doesn't have to. Even Hugo Gonzalez was taken aback a tad when the subject of George's absence came up.
For the record, the Horford plan was revealed during the offseason prior to when the plan came in full effect by The Athletic's Jared Weiss. To compensate for his absence, Boston had to count on the likes of Luke Kornet, Blake Griffin, Neemias Queta, and even Mike Muscala to compensate for his absence.
It was a chaotic, but fun approach to conserving Horford, and it proved to be a pretty smart strategy. One would think that Boston would do the same with George, who is around the same age Horford around this time.
Celtics must be highly confident George can survive the season
The point of this Horford plan was to keep him spry for when Boston played in the postseason. It's not like Horford didn't take his conditioning seriously, but the team knew that despite him aging like wine, his effectiveness would eventually wane. Hence, they had to conserve him.
Maybe they think differently with George. Perhaps they believe the best thing to do with him is to still conserve his minutes by spreading them out among the other wings on the roster, as the Celtics have plenty of them besides him and Jayson Tatum.
Hugo Gonzalez, Baylor Scheierman, Jordan Walsh, and Ron Harper Jr. have all proven they are talented enough to play when their name gets called upon. Hence, it might be possible that George plays around 25 to 27 minutes a game to conserve him rather than keep him out for entire games.
In all fairness, we don't know for sure what Boston's plan is for George, but it's massively telling that there hasn't been any reported plan with George with the season about to begin. The fact tha it appears both he and Mitchell Robinson won't be conserved as much as one would think shows Boston's confidence that they'll be ready for the season.
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