10 years ago, the Boston Celtics fanbase would have been ecstatic to see Paul George don the iconic green uniform. Now? They couldn't be more devastated, but that honestly doesn't much to do with George himself. Okay, maybe a little, but it comes with the territory of being traded for a historic Celtic like Jaylen Brown, which also makes the spotlight on George even brighter.
Making it worse is that George is richly paid for his services despite the fact that he last made an All-Star team in 2024, last made an All-NBA team in 2021, and since 2019, has only crossed the 70-game barrier once. Anyone who argues that George is overpaid as a player isn't wrong, but narratives like those can be misconstrued as "he's bad." On the Celtics, he could prove that wrong.
George may not be worth all of the money he's getting paid, but there's still a lot of good basketball left in him. His generational hops are very much gone, but his IQ, handle, floor-spacing and defensive tenacity still remains. Plus, while not an elite scorer anymore, he still has the gravity to make opponents pay close attention to him.
Boston's not paying him to be the player he was in Indiana, Oklahoma City, and Los Angeles. They're paying him to be the player that led the charge in taking them out two months ago.
George is still a rare archetype of a player as a big two-way wing that can score from anywhere on the floor. In a way, he's not a superstar, but he is a Derrick White-like player in the fact that he makes a huge difference when he's on the floor.
He will never shed the "overpaid" narrative, but can prove himself to be quite a Celtic should he fit like he appears to be on paper.
George can make the Celtics annoyingly good
It's tough to call Boston a title contender at the moment, which doesn't just stem from exchanging Brown for George. The Celtics have underwhelmed over the last two years, having not made the Eastern Conference Finals since Banner 18.
We won't know if George can elevate them back to that tier (it's actually more likely that Mitchell Robinson could for how much he shores up their big man depth from last season), but it's fair to anticipate that he can help Boston turn into a team that fellow NBA contenders will hate to face.
Talent-wise, George isn't at his peak, but that won't be too hard to work around. The real question about him as a player is how durable he still is. That will be the key as to whether this works. Brown had his warts, but he stayed on the floor, even on a torn meniscus. George's rap sheet is worse, but in a lesser role where he can be a Derrick White type, he might not be as big of an injury risk.
There are plenty of variables that could lead to this experiment going wrong for Boston, but George has enough left in the tank that he deserves a fair shot as a Celtic.
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