It's not that surprising that the Boston Celtics lost to the Detroit Pistons in their regular season debut. What was surprising is that, holy hell, Paul George looked like prime PG-13 out there! 38 points? Seven threes? Five steals? A team-high plus/minus of plus-nine? For everything that went wrong, George was not one of them.
George was among the Celtics' biggest concerns coming into this season because of what Boston owes him and his inability to stay on the floor. It's why, when many bring up why the Celtics made the deal, the first thoughts that come up are, "Well, they needed the draft assets" and/or "It really helps with their cap flexibility."
Here's what's funny. That's part of it for sure, but George's debut is solid confirmation that Boston wanted him for what he could still do on the basketball court. Some speculated that George could be better than many believe he can be, and his debut more or less backs that notion up big time.
No, he's not going to put up those numbers on a regular basis. He didn't do that when he was in his prime, but he showed he was talented enough to be capable of it. The fact that he put up that kind of stat line - against one of Boston's tougher competitors, no less - shows there's still plenty of good basketball left in him.
It makes the trade more of a win
We shouldn't discount the cap flexibility that Boston got from acquiring George nor the assets they are owed (thanks, Kawhi, for everything!), but him showing out like this just makes Boston look better for making the deal.
In all fairness, Jaylen Brown didn't look too shabby in his debut with the Philadelphia 76ers, but he also scored half as many points as George did, though it definitely factored into how they beat the reigning NBA Champions on their home floor.
Even so, everyone thought Boston got a talent downgrade when they traded Brown for George back in July. It's a long 82-game season, so of course there is plenty of time for both players to show how talented they are and how well they fit with their teams, but as far as individual impact goes, George is definitely in the lead.
Whether he proves himself to be better for Boston than Brown is for Philadelphia, he has just disproved the narrative that trading for him was all about money and draft capital. Games like yesterday's prove that it was about basketball. When it's all said and done, he may prove it was primarily about that.
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