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The addition of Paul George to the core of Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid prompted Sixers’ governor Josh Harris to proclaim this was the most talented team of his tenure.

Then everything went wrong.

Not only did Embiid’s knee injury become such a constant issue that he was never able to play full time, but George hyper-extended his knee in his second preseason game as a Sixer.

After that caused him to miss the first week of the regular season, George hyper-extended the very same knee eight games into his Sixers’ tenure, giving him a second bone bruise in less than a month.

That knee injury seemed to trouble him the whole season, as did the groin and finger injuries he picked up in January. George’s season finally ended in March when he decided to explore treatment options for everything he banged up during the year.

His season ended at just 41 games. The three of him — George, Embiid and Maxey — played in just 15 games together, and the three of them were only able to finish 12 of them.

In that time he averaged 16.2 points per game on 43% shooting while making 35.8% of his threes. Those were all the lowest marks in seasons where he’s played at least 40 games since his third year in the league. Only 16% of his shots last season were at the rim, which was a career-low.

Some looked to explain away this entire year to injuries, while others used it as proof that the 34-year old has become completely washed. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. There actually are some positives to be taken from George’s debut year with the Sixers, but also just as many troubling signs.

It is vague just when and how often George’s knee started to bother him, but it was around December and January he would mention starting to feel more like himself. Over that time he had a 20-game stretch where he averaged 18.8 points per game, making 39.7% of his threes with an effective field goal percentage of 53.7%.

Something that also became clear during this time was that George and Maxey had begun to figure out each other as a pairing while that chemistry with Embiid did not follow.

Per Cleaning the Glass, lineups with Maxey and George with Embiid off the floor were still outscored by 1.2 points, but had figured things out offensively. Those groups scored 118.5 points per 100 possessions, putting them in the 79th percentile for offensive efficiency.

Lineups with Embiid and George with Maxey on the bench though scored 91 points per 100 with a 43.8% effective field goal percentage, both of these are in the worst percentile in the league. Keep in mind how small these sample sizes are though, the Maxey and George lineups had over 1000 more possessions of reps together.

Getting George to click with Embiid will be the first step in making lineups with all three of them work. With Embiid constantly in a state of needing to ramp himself up, he and Maxey would typically spam their two-man actions while George would fade into the background for long stretches of games.

With all three on the floor they were outscored by 0.9 points, posting a middling 109 points per 100 possessions and 51.9% effective field goal percentage.

Obviously a larger sample size would be helpful, but the health of this team’s top stars can’t be relied upon at this point. Embiid’s knee problems are what they are, and George has played more than 56 games just once since the 2018-19 season.

This past Sixers’ season was a showing of everything that could have gone wrong going wrong, but those are the risks when building around two stars in their 30s with extensive injury histories.

Season Grade: D