On the night of Aug. 1, 2014, the basketball world stopped.
Paul George, one of the league's most promising upcoming players, landed awkwardly trying to block a shot in a USA Basketball scrimmage. When he landed he suffered a tibia/fibula fracture, and his season was over.
Now six months removed from the gruesome injury, George was ready to open up about the night in an exclusive with Bleacher Report. In a video titled, "The Road Back: Part One," George, along with his mom and dad, discussed what happened that night.
“I missed [the block], I didn’t get the ball. But then I came down. And it was just awkward. I didn’t really feel nothing then. I just knew I couldn’t put my foot down. I couldn’t help myself from standing," George said in the video. "Why can’t I stand right now? Then I saw my bone. The second I saw my bone I lost it. I just laid flat."
The injury was a shock to George. Not just because of the severity of it, but because he's been playing for so long and never had a serious injury.
“I felt I was immortal," George said. "I was invincible. I’ve made so many plays where guys go down and I walked up clean from it. I did feel that nothing bad could ever happen to me on the court.”
At the beginning of the video, the interviewer asks George if he could watch the video on camera. George declines. He obviously was still fairly emotional over the incident. He said the pain from the injury was intense.
"The pain was tough," George said. "As soon as the air hit my bone, where the open wound was, it just shot through my whole body. Everything just slowed down. Like, I could hear every individual in the arena talking."
George claims he never cried throughout the process. He said he was just upset he wouldn't be there for his Pacers teammates this season.
Doctors put a rod in George's leg, something he says will be there forever. “It’s a part of me," he said. He also added he would spend 12-13 hours in a single room some days because he couldn't get up.
The good news is the Pacers' star was recently seen dunking, so his recovery process is coming along just fine.