Paul George says Sixers’ locker-room leak ‘kind of negates everything’ they accomplished in team meeting
“The whole meeting, that’s normal in the NBA. Teams go through that,” George said on his podcast. What isn’t normal is those private conversations becoming public.
Even Sixers teammates Paul George and Reggie Jackson are confused about how reports of what was said Monday during a team meeting were leaked to ESPN a day later, including comments from Tyrese Maxey that were directed at former MVP Joel Embiid.
“That’s a great question,” George replied on Podcast P with Paul George when asked how the story got out. “I don’t know how the hell [ESPN reporter] Shams [Charania] got that story, or how that even leaked, especially some of it being kind of word-for-word, or not necessarily word-for-word, but quoted. That was the crazy part about it.
“The whole meeting, that’s normal in the NBA. Teams go through that. I’ve been on multiple teams where we’ll at some point have a meeting and a check-in if things aren’t going right or we know we could be playing better and we’re trying to get the most out of one another. That’s normal. That happens.”
With the Sixers, who started the year with championship aspirations, off to a 2-12 start, everyone in the locker room knows that they need to turn things around, and fast. During the meeting after Monday’s loss to the Miami Heat, ESPN reported that Maxey called out Embiid for tardiness.
Despite the reports, George, who left Wednesday game against the Memphis Grizzlies with another knee injury, said the meeting was a “positive and healthy conversation.”
“We all just want the best,” George said. “We are at a point where we’re a team that cares, right? A team that naturally cares about what’s going on with their team. They’re going to have sit-downs and they’re going to discuss: How can we get back on track or start winning tradition or winning culture?”
Jackson agreed that there was “no negativity” from the meeting, just players and coaches looking to see what they can do to improve.
» READ MORE: Nick Nurse, Tyrese Maxey hope ‘brutally honest’ team meeting serves as step in right direction
George said the only people in the room during the meeting were the people who are “in the trenches” with the Sixers night in and night out, the players and coaching staff. But, just like Embiid, who shared a similar sentiment on Wednesday, George was disheartened that the content of the meeting was leaked.
“It being leaked, that’s where it kind of negates everything that we had in that meeting as far as trusting in one another and putting everything out there so that we can all have these conversations and it being not taken from a bad place, so it was kind of [expletive] that got leaked,” George said.