Most bad first impressions are our own fault.
Maybe you spilled a drink on someone. Forgot their name five seconds after hearing it. Tried a joke that landed somewhere beneath the Earth’s crust.
Paul George doesn’t get that luxury.
In a few months, he’ll walk into an arena full of people who have already decided they don’t like what he represents before he has even checked into his first game.
Paul George has already done one smart thing as a Celtic. He waived a $3.9 million trade bonus that would have added to Boston’s cap burden, giving the front office a little more breathing room before he ever put on the uniform.
Nice gesture. Thoughtful. Team-friendly. Good optics.
But something tells me the waived trade bonus will be completely forgotten the first time George appears on the injury report with right knee soreness.
The first few days after the Jaylen Brown trade belonged to anger, confusion and what felt like a 500% increase in Google searches for “optionality.” Jaylen had been here for a decade, won a championship and built enough memories that his eventual return will probably require tissues and an extra commercial break.
The shock is wearing off. The F-minus trade grades have been filed, sports radio has mostly stopped trying to fire Brad before lunch, and Summer League clips have started washing over us like a deeply needed shower.
Now comes basketball. Thank goodness.
Celtics fans are beginning to look at this roster and ask the colder question that eventually follows every emotional transaction: Did this trade make the team better?
George is the only part of this trade that can lace up sneakers.
Draft picks can hide inside future seasons. Optionality can spend the summer hiding behind Brad Stevens at a press conference. A shorter contract cannot miss an open three or get beaten backdoor. But Parquet P has to take the floor in front of 19,000 people and turn Brad’s crossed fingers and future assets into actual basketball.
That is a hard first impression anywhere.
In Boston, it’s meeting-your-Lakers-fan-father-in-law difficult.
Boston will grade the player before the plan
So far, the Celtics have been careful about how they describe George.
Brad Stevens did not pitch him as a one-for-one replacement for Brown. He talked instead about the total package: George, draft capital, a shorter contract and the flexibility to keep shaping the roster.
Joe Mazzulla was more direct in his assessment.
“You’re getting rid of strengths, but you’re bringing in new strengths,” Mazzulla told CelticsBlog’s Noa Dalzell in a recent interview.
That is probably the fairest way to discuss the trade. Brown brought force, durability and years of chemistry with Jayson Tatum. George brings something different, and intentionally so. The Celtics believe those differences can fit into the team they are building now.
Celtics fans will be grading with a red pen.
George’s first quiet night will not be treated as one. It will become an audit.
Four missed jumpers in the first half? Here comes the return of the trade grades.
A maintenance day in November? Someone will post Jaylen’s 2025-26 season minutes before the coffee finishes brewing.
A bad game against Philadelphia? NBC Sports Boston may as well cut to the 2031 first-round pick sleeping peacefully in its crib.
The new plan also includes Mitchell Robinson, future picks, a larger role for Payton Pritchard and whatever Boston can pull from its young group.
Boston didn’t trade Jaylen for Paul George. They traded Jaylen for an entirely different idea of how to build a roster. George just happens to be the face on the front of the package.
He is also 36, carries a long injury history and is stepping into the space once occupied by a player woven deeply enough into the city that October 24 is officially Jaylen Brown Day.
George’s reputation will follow him, too. None of his stops since Indiana ended the way those fanbases hoped.
That is how players start collecting narratives. Every injury becomes proof they’re washed. Every playoff loss becomes evidence they cannot win. Every podcast episode becomes another reason to question whether basketball still comes first.
Paul Hudrick, who covered George during his two seasons in Philadelphia, pushed back on that perception during a recent CelticsBlog Feed Q&A.
Hudrick described a player who may have pushed his body too far during a miserable first season in Philadelphia. George played through knee, groin and finger injuries, took injections to stay on the floor for a 24-win team and stopped recording his podcast.
More than anything, Hudrick came away impressed by George as a leader. During his suspension last season, he could still practice with the team and would often finish sessions playing one-on-one against younger teammates and giving them pointers. When Philadelphia’s lost season turned into a parade of 10-day contracts, Hudrick overheard George introduce himself to one new arrival and give him his phone number.
A future Hall of Famer did not have to make himself available to a guy whose contract might expire before the road trip ended. George did anyway.
He also remained accountable to the media and appeared to understand the responsibility that came with his contract. None of that repairs his knee or guarantees he will stay healthy, but it rounds out the person Boston is bringing into a locker room filled with young players who will suddenly be asked to do more.
Boston tends to appreciate that level of investment in a team. Still, George’s effort will need to be visible from the balcony.
A deflection into the third row will help. So will making the extra pass or defending someone bigger than him in a game the Celtics need to win, which Celtics fans consider to be all of them. George does not need to arrive declaring that Boston is his city now. If you’re reading this, Paul, please do not do that.
He needs to make a few winning plays and let the Garden reach its own conclusion.
The useful version of Paul George still fits
The Celtics did not trade for the Paul George who finished third in MVP voting in 2019.
If Boston spends next season trying to locate him, someone should unplug Brad’s brain and force a hard reboot.
The encouraging part is that the Celtics may not need anything close to that version.
Hudrick described the best current version of George as an elite 3-and-D player who can occasionally create offense. The burst that once made George a genuine star may never fully return, and George himself has acknowledged that uncertainty. But Hudrick was impressed by how well he still defended Tatum and Brown during the playoffs (too soon?), and said George’s off-ball defense remained elite throughout his time in Philadelphia, even when injuries limited him elsewhere.
That player has a locker waiting for him in Boston.
The fit starts with shooting. George is a career 38.4% shooter from three and, as fellow staff writer Jacob Issenberg noted, has made 41.3% of his catch-and-shoot threes over the past nine seasons. That creates a very different decision for defenses when Tatum drives or Derrick White gets into the paint. Leaving George alone is still dangerous, even if the rest of his game no longer looks like it did in Indiana.
He’s also perfectly comfortable operating without dominating the ball. Philadelphia used him alongside Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe. The best stretches came when George accepted a supporting role, defended, spaced the floor and occasionally took control of a young, bench-heavy unit.
Boston does not need another player fighting Tatum for the steering wheel. Someone who knows when to take it for a few exits? Yes please.
Forget the 1A + 1B conversations. Tatum is the unquestioned first option, while White and Pritchard will handle more creation. George shouldn’t require 20 shots or an offense built around his preferred elbow touches. He can move between roles depending on the lineup.
Most nights, Boston can ask him to space the floor, disrupt passing lanes and occasionally rescue a possession after the offense has spent 18 seconds wandering around without a plan. We know those possessions well.
Boston also finished fourth in defensive rating last season despite ranking 29th in forcing turnovers, an area where George could immediately help. As Nate Moskowitz highlighted, George graded in the 93rd percentile at his position in defensive turnover impact while averaging 1.7 steals and 4.1 deflections per game.
Nobody should read “93rd percentile” and start fitting him for Gary Payton’s handcuffs. They have Tatum, White, Hugo González and other younger legs for the exhausting assignments. But George can work as a help defender, read the floor and punish the careless pass Boston too often watched sail harmlessly through the lane last season.
There is also something appealing about plugging him into a system that should not ask him to drag an offense through February.
The Celtics won 56 games despite playing most of the season without Tatum. Joe Mazzulla could probably coax 48 regular-season wins out of five shooters, a folding chair and one deeply committed second-round pick. They have enough depth to manage George’s minutes, skip back-to-backs when needed à la Al Horford and resist treating every road game in Charlotte like a referendum on toughness.
Boston can ask less of George. Sadly, it cannot make him younger.
The knee remains the biggest concern. Hudrick said George did not look right until after his suspension last season, and even then, the old burst never fully returned. The glass-half-full take is that he finished the season healthy, did not need another procedure and should have a normal offseason of training.
Normal would be a great start.
The Garden does not believe in grace periods
First impressions are funny. Some people meet their future spouse and know immediately they’re the one. Others spend six months finding them annoying before realizing they are the best thing that ever happened to them.
Celtics fans generally give you somewhere between six possessions and halftime before making up their minds.
George could play well for three weeks, miss one nationally televised game against New York and find himself on trial in Boston Common by midnight. One strong quarter against Philadelphia could turn the Garden into a revival meeting. One bad quarter could swing it right back. The opinion changes will be violent and deeply unserious.
George’s job is to help Boston win, not make anyone forget Brown.
That means defending, spacing the floor and being healthy when it matters. The Celtics cannot ask him to replace Brown’s force, become the Energy Shifter™ and play 70 games. They need the player Hudrick described: useful, competitive and still capable of reminding everyone why he made nine All-Star teams.
First impressions are often remembered as cleaner than they really were. The spilled drink becomes a funny story. The person you could not stand somehow ends up beside you ten years later, insisting you hit it off immediately.
George may win Boston over quickly, or he may spend half the season trying to get the stain out of his shirt.
Either way, the Garden will begin making up its mind about 18 seconds into his first shift.
He’d better make the extra pass.
