Philadelphia 76ers wing Paul George made a big announcement about his podcast on Wednesday, and the news prompted very similar reactions from the NBA fandom.
George revealed that he is pausing further episodes of his “Podcast P” podcast for the remainder of the NBA season. The former All-Star said he is making the move in order to focus on his goal of competing for an NBA championship.
“I want to let the ‘Podcast P’ family know that after today’s episode with Dwight I plan to take a break from the pod just to focus on getting my body right, getting mentally right, help this squad make a push towards our goal to finish the season out and give ourselves a chance to be in contention to compete for a championship,” George revealed.
George’s announcement was almost universally mocked and derided on social media. Many pointed out that, with the 76ers sitting at 20-37 at the time of the announcement, the team’s championship aspirations are already over for this season.
Others questioned George’s explanation of “getting my body right,” taking it as a suggestion that George does not feel in shape at this late stage of the regular season.
It is pretty easy to see why making this sort of announcement with the 76ers 17 games under .500 is not going to sit well. If George’s podcast has been hindering his focus in any way, he probably should have paused it months ago instead of waiting until the team’s season is effectively over.
One has to wonder if this is a response to a podcast-related stat that recently went viral and put George in a very bad light.
Virtually everything that can go wrong has for the Sixers this season. Joel Embiid cannot stay healthy and is not effective even when playing. George has also dealt with injuries and has been limited to 38 games as a result. His numbers have been down even when on the floor, as his 16.2 points per game are well below his career average.
The Sixers do remain 2.5 games back of the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference, but nobody thinks they are a serious contender at this point. George might be the only exception to that.
