Welcome Back, Paul George

August 1, 2014 is a night that will live in infamy forever. That late summer evening was truly a, “Where were you?” moment.

OK, let me be clear. It’s nowhere near the heights of a November 22, 1963, or December 7, 1941, thankfully. But to folks who call Indiana “home”, and true fans of the NBA, what happened in Las Vegas on the first night of August in 2014 is one of those nights they will tell their kids about.

I was sitting in the basement of a high school buddy’s house playing cards with six or seven other guys I grew up with. The group sat around a makeshift poker table drinking a few beers and sharing a few laughs, while poker chips were being tossed and cards being folded. A friend of mine to my right was using his iPhone to stream the end of the USA scrimmage so we could keep an eye on the game while still having a good time. It was sometime after the third hand I folded on that my friend said:

“The game is stopped. What the hell’s goin’ on?”

I hadn’t been following along too much, but when he said that, I looked to my right on the iPhone screen and saw the game had come to a halt, but the ESPN cameras weren’t showing anything on the court; it was only the faces in the crowd, and the disbelief of the players.

Immediately my mind reverted back to the Spring of 2013. Ironically enough, this misfortune happened in Indianapolis. It was the Elite Eight of the men’s NCAA tournament in a matchup between Duke and Louisville. You probably know it better as the Kevin Ware game.

When Kevin Ware broke his leg in that gruesome way in 2013 you could instantly tell something horrible had happened even if you missed what happened live. The arena was silent, filled with nothing but fans with their hands on their heads, or covering their mouth, similar to what we were looking at on the four-inch iPhone screen.

“Clint, this is not good. Someone got hurt. Bad,” I muttered.

The rest of the guys continued to play poker, and weren’t paying much attention to what just came out of my mouth. That, or they didn’t hear me. ESPN seemed to play up the drama, though. I had been watching on the iPhone for what felt like an eternity with still no clue what had happened.

Two thoughts were running through my head. The first was pure curiosity:

“What in the hell is going on that is so terrible that they aren’t showing us?”

The second one crept into my mind that I didn’t want to think about, like a horrible nightmare flashing before you after you wake up in the morning:

“Please…please. Don’t let it be--”

Before I could even finish the thought, the ESPN cameras finally showed what we were waiting for. The nightmare became reality.

He laid on the baseline with his hands on his head. I screamed. We both did. This got the attention of the other guys.

“…suffering a…serious lower leg injury,” the ESPN broadcaster said in a somber tone. The words shook me to the core.

Being a native Hoosier, and a lifelong Pacers fan, I felt a punch to the gut like it was my own family member lying on that court. No, it wasn’t because I now realized the upcoming season would be a tough one for the Blue and Gold.

No, it wasn’t out of anger like some God forsaken people complained about through Twitter, believing he was dumb for playing with the USA team.

It was because this was our guy.

It was our guy who dunks on LeBron James.

It was our guy who represents our state, our city in NBA All-Star Games, and dunk contests.

It was our guy we see in Gatorade and Papa Johns commercials. Michael Jordan and Peyton Manning appear in those ads, not a guy on the Indiana Pacers. But he did.

For a few brief moments that night, you wondered if our guy would ever be the same again.

As I was driving home a few dollars poorer from the night with my friends all I could think about was the events that took place in Las Vegas a few hours earlier. I thought of the tragedy of it all. I thought about the countless nights my friends, family, the city of Indianapolis, and myself spent enjoying watching him play basketball. I thought about the memories he had given all of us.

The dunk contest in 2012, the posterization of Birdman in Miami, the Reggie Miller-esque three-point shot to send Game 1 into overtime, the 39-point takeover after being down 17 against the Wizards in the 2014 playoffs, all flashing through my mind. It was kind of ironic. Sport giveth, and sport taketh away.

Now, lets flash-forward to after his surgery, and a month after his first time talking to the media since the injury to September.

Pacers media day in September of 2014 told a different story than the media day that took place a year before. In 2013, the NBA Finals and number one seed in the Eastern Conference were the message from the team.

Just one calendar year later the Pacers seemed to be channeling their inner-Vince Vaughn from Dodgeball in one of my favorite movie quotes: “I found that if you have a goal, you might not reach it. But if you don’t have one, then you’re never disappointed. I gotta tell you, it feels phenomenal.”

This, of course, was large in part due to the loss of their guy, who at the time was expected to miss the season. As Frank Vogel always says, “He’s big part of what we do here,” and that part would be missing for 2014-2015. That, plus Lance Stephenson bolting town during the summer in free agency, and the Pacers were looking at a rather large challenge of a season ahead.

There was, however, a silver lining at the media day festivities at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

He showed up with no brace, no boot, no crutches, walking on what seemed to be a normal right leg just over a month after he snapped it in half. The franchise downplayed it saying he was still a long way away and they expect him to miss the year. But everyone who saw him sporting the new number 13 on his white uniform that day, and walking under his own power, would be lying to you if in the back of their mind they didn’t at some point think one thing:

“He’s going to come back. Not just next year, but this year.”

The Pacers continued to stay the course under the direction of Larry Bird and Frank Vogel. Throughout 2014-2015 I thought because those two men lead this team, the Pacers may lose some of their “gold swagger” without him and Stephenson, but the “blue collar” would certainly remain. It did.

Night in, and night out, the Pacers would battle to the end with sometimes their third string players on the floor in key roles and situations. Night in, and night out, he would sit on the end of the bench in a flashy suit cheering on his teammates. Night in, and night out, Pacers broadcasters and fans would talk about the progress of him, hoping desperately for more positive news about his possible return to surface.

Every now and then I would stop to think about how incredibly odd this season has been. It felt eerily similar to the 2011 season the Colts had when Peyton Manning missed every game. In both cases if you had told any Colts or Pacers fan three months before the year that he, or Peyton wouldn’t play the upcoming year they would have laughed straight to your face. No way.

The occasional video from the Pacers website would pop-up on Twitter showing him shooting jump shots, working on his dribbling, and eventually playing four-on-four with his teammates. He teased us all during the All-Star Break in New York in February when he said in an interview he was shooting for March 14 to be his first game. That opened some eyes. Hope was there. He wanted to practice fully by March 1, and he did that even earlier than his self-made deadline.

March 14 came and went with him yet to make his debut. What once was hope that we would see our guy back on the floor this year seemed to start fading. The games remaining dwindled away into the single digits, and with the Pacers on the outside looking in on the Eastern Conference playoffs, the return didn’t seem likely.

On the first Saturday morning in April of 2015, I was sitting down having a late breakfast when my iPhone buzzed. I looked down to see the text that read two letters:

“PG.”

Could this be it? Is he coming back tomorrow against the Heat? Are we finally getting our guy back?

I checked Twitter, and instead of seeing “#PrayforPG” I saw “#WelcomeBackPG”.

Remember the feeling in our stomach like we got punched in the gut back in August? It had been replaced by the feeling you get on Christmas morning.

Paul George is coming back.

Once my Easter celebrations had wrapped up the next day, and I had hid enough eggs to hold me over until next April, I sat down in my pinstriped number 24 (outdated, I know) Pacers jersey and turned on Fox Sports Indiana. The game began, and I could feel like the excitement in the building oozing out through the TV.

Then, with about six minutes remaining in the first quarter at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, it happened. Eight months and four days after Las Vegas, Paul George played again. He played 15 minutes. He scored 13 points while knocking down a few jump shots that Pacers play-by-play broadcaster, Chris Denari, described as “vintage Paul George”, and it was.

Now, instead of telling our kids about August 1, 2014, we’ll tell them about April 4, 2015: The night Paul George returned.

After George checked out for the last time on Sunday evening, Frank Vogel hugged him, and said what an entire city had been thinking for eight months.

“Damn,” Vogel said, “I missed you.”

We missed you too, Paul. Welcome back.