In the summer of 2014 while playing for Team USA, Paul George suffered a gruesome leg injury during a scrimmage game in Las Vegas. At the time, many pundits thought George's NBA career could be over since he sustained a compound fracture of both bones in his lower right leg.

It was a very tragic scene watching George get hurt. Kyrie Irving was crying in his father's arms after the injury and guys like Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose were in utter shock seeing George get carried off on a stretcher.

Surprisingly, though, George didn't miss the entire 2014-15 season. He was able to appear in six games for the Indiana Pacers toward the end of the campaign. The swingman averaged 8.8 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.0 assists in 15.2 minutes per contest while shooting 36.7 percent from the field, 40.9 percent from beyond the arc and 72.7 percent from the free-throw line.

Before the 2015-16 season started, no one knew what to expect from George. Some thought he was going to be a role player for the rest of his career. However, that wasn't the case at all.

In 2015-16, George showed the entire world he was back and maybe even better than before. The California native averaged 23.1 points per game for the Pacers and made the All-Star team. The basketball community was thrilled to see George playing the game he loves again at an elite level. The pundits who thought George was going to be a role player were nowhere to be found during that campaign, as the talented small forward proved them wrong.

During the 2016-17 season, George put up 23.7 points per contest and once again made the All-Star team. He was now firmly back in the elite company of basketball players and it was incredible to watch given the seriousness of his leg injury.

Unfortunately for the Pacers, the 2016-17 season was the last year George played for the Pacers. Following the conclusion of the 2017 playoffs, George told Pacers' management he wasn’t going to re-sign with the franchise when he became an unrestricted free agent in the offseason of 2018. That statement from George forced the Pacers to put their best player on the trade block because the organization couldn’t lose him and not get anything in return in 2018.

In a stunning move, the Pacers traded George to the Oklahoma City Thunder in July of 2017. Reports at the time said George wanted to be dealt to either the Los Angeles Lakers or Los Angeles Clippers, but there was no way the Pacers were going to do the All-Star any favors.

In 2017-18, George averaged 21.9 points per game alongside Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony. OKC, though, lost in the first round of the 2018 playoffs and moved on from Anthony after just one season. After the Thunder got bounced by the Utah Jazz, everyone figured George was going to bolt OKC after a year and sign with either the Lakers or Clippers.

However, George shocked the world and re-signed with the Thunder on a massive four-year, $136.9 million maximum contract. The fourth year of the deal is a player option. It was a great story to cover since not many experts thought George was ever going to see max money again after his injury in 2014.

In 2018-19, George played like an MVP. He averaged 28.0 points per game and probably would have finished with more MVP votes if his shoulders didn’t fail him near the end of the campaign. The Thunder lost to Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round of the 2019 playoffs. Game 5 of that series turned out to be the last game George and Westbrook would play for OKC.

In the summer of 2019, the Thunder traded Westbrook to the Houston Rockets and George to the Clippers. Two-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard actually recruited George to the Clips and convinced PG-13 to request a trade from the Thunder to come back home.

When George’s current contract with the Clippers expires, he will have made $217,812,725 in NBA money, per Spotrac. Not bad for a guy who some thought was never going to be a star ever again in the NBA.

For his career, Paul George has averages of 19.9 points, 6.4 boards and 3.3 assists in 646 regular-season games with the Pacers, Thunder and Clippers. The 30-year-old will try and win his first NBA championship once the “bubble” games begin on July 30 down in Orlando, Florida.

For the first time in franchise history, the Clippers are legitimate title contenders with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George leading the way. LAC has the second-best record in the West. They are 5.5 games back of LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Lakers — a team they went 2-1 against in the 2019-20 regular season.