Paul George made an Association-altering decision to extract himself from the Indiana Pacers, which redefined the landscape of basketball in both Indiana and Oklahoma City. For me, the Indianapolis resident,  the Pacers podcast host, the basketball writer and the advanced stats dork, writing this piece is particularly challenging. PG is shooting horribly from the field—for his standards, at least—so I should be flaming him, right? Well, I’m not going to.

I love Paul George.

He is a damn good basketball player, and he’s showing it in OKC. His role is new to him and unique; his usage is below 25 percent for the first time since he hooped alongside another All-Star in Danny Granger. It’s also the third highest on the Thunder’s roster, behind stars Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony. But even in an alternate city, on a new team and in a fresh role, George is discovering a way to be both impactful and authoritative.

The best way to have a significant total impact on the basketball court is to play a lot of basketball, and George is doing exactly that. He leads a Thunder team that contains last year’s MVP and the 2013 scoring champ in minutes, and he has earned the faith of head coach Billy Donovan to work with a variety of different units. He’s played over 100 minutes with four different Thunder contributors who don’t start, and he’s logged over 200 minutes with both Jerami Grant and Raymond Felton.

Even showcasing his stuff in a tremendous variety of lineups, George still supports a 1.8 net rating as of December 8. In typical fashion, he has done this on the less glamorous end of the floor. His 99.7 defensive rating is already sensational, but his biggest accomplishment this season is leading the league in steals.

He’s a meticulous film-watching maestro with elephant-like memory and karate master-like anticipation—the perfect combination of skills to rack up the takeaways. With De’Aaron Fox handling the ball here, he reads the rookie’s predictable pass like a picture book. Raymond Felton got switched onto Skal Labissiere, a mismatch for the Sacramento Kings in the post, and as soon as the young Fox looks to feed the matchup, PG shifts over from the weak-side block and seizes the lob:

That’s an excellent read from a supreme defender off the ball.

He’s close enough to his own man, Buddy Hield, that if Fox were to attempt the skip pass to the corner, he could recover and prevent his matchup from scoring. Because of his perfect positioning, even the Kings getting the matchup they wanted wasn’t enough; George was one step ahead throughout the whole sequence.

He shows off his balance and positioning skills frequently, like in this next possession.

In semi-transition, he slides into the passing lane so Jeff Teague can’t toss the ball over to the wing. When the play resets, his man, Shabazz Muhammad, slices through the lane, and he shuffles his feet to stay right on him. At this moment, he sees Karl-Anthony Towns has an open run to the rim with a lob incoming, so he bursts over and snags the steal out of mid-air. His defense also leads to some offense in this instance, as he pushes in transition and creates a wide-open three for Alex Abrines:

In addition to steals, the Fresno State product leads the league in deflections—and by a lot.

Only George and former teammate Thaddeus Young have 85-plus deflections as of December 8. Young has 85. George has 107. Leading by 22 is already sensational, and the OKC forward is doing it with ease by recording nearly five per game. Related to these pokeaways are loose balls recovered, and he also leads the league with 46. Only he and the standout Thunder point guard (45) have more than 35.

Dominating the hustle stats shows the energy PG13 is using on the defensive end of the court.

Most importantly, that effort is expended in a way that directly benefits the team. As of December 8, the Thunder average 13.5 fast-break points per game. Twelve come with George on the floor. His steals create opportunities for others at a very high rate, and OKC averages more fast-break points in George’s 37 minutes than 20 teams do for entire games. It also leads the league in points off turnovers per game (20.7), 15.7 of which come when he’s playing.

He and the Thunder are always looking to push once he nabs the ball, and that leads to easy buckets for George…

…and his teammates (with some pizzazz):

Transition plays are some of the most efficient plays in basketball because they usually end with an open look. The Thunder are 11th in the league in transition frequency, as 15.8 percent of their possessions fall into the category. PG13 has much to do with that, with his defense helping the squad have an efficient offense when he is on the hardwood.

It ain’t just steals, though.

He has a career high in block percentage (1.6 percent), which is even more impressive because the 6’9″ George started out his career playing shooting guard,  meaning he was often guarding players significantly shorter than him. Being able to reject a higher percentage of opponents’ shots now than when he was playing with a frequent height advantage is a testament to his defensive aptitude this season—just something else to add to the list of ways in which he’s excelling on his new team.

All this put together is why George currently ranks 37th in defensive points saved (DPS) and sits at No. 8 among small forwards. He stifles his matchups and makes tons of plus plays on the preventing end of the court, and it’s keeping him impactful while he transitions to a new role.

On offense, it’s a different story. Hell, it’s an entirely different genre.

George hasn’t been bad on offense. Far from it, actually. But given that he finally has the supporting cast he so craved in Indiana, his inability to take the step forward that many expected is disappointing. The explanations for this, many of which just come down to hitting shots, are interesting and fixable.

He’s scoring at his lowest rate in a half-decade, but not for lack of trying. He’s taking and making more threes than ever before, swishing 40.7 percent of his 7.5 attempts per game. He’s always been a shifty player with a penchant for finding space, but now he’s getting to do it off the ball, too.

On this beautiful play, the Thunder run him off staggered screens. Both Gorgui Dieng and Andrew Wiggins are confused how they should stop him, since he’s a threat to curl and drive off either screen. He pops out, receives and nails the catch-and-shoot three:

In plays like that one, where he spots up off a screen, George has been killing it. He’s garnering 1.16 points per possession on spot-ups and has an efficient 61.1 effective field-goal percentage in that play type. Off screens, those figures are 1.13 and 56.3 percent, respectively. When the Thunder cater their play style to his strengths, he scores like his old self.

But his new role, which basically has him operating as the third fiddle, has not been kind to him in other capacities on the offensive end. His shooting percentages from deep are great, and he’s notching the second-best rate of his career from zero to three feet, so it would seem he should be having an effective season.

He’s not, largely because he’s struggling with two issues that have never plagued him before: mid-range shooting and isolations.

From the mid-range, George has been fighting an uphill battle all season. He doesn’t have Myles Turner or David West to stretch the court for him like he did the last handful of years in Indiana, and he’s often playing alongside the never-guarded Andre Roberson. So now he’s stuck putting up tougher contested mid-rangers, and they aren’t falling. He’s dropping in 28 percent of his looks from three to 10 feet and 29 percent of his looks from 10 to 16 feet—both near or at career-low levels.

On this play, the same staggered screen action for George we saw earlier is used to get him open. He gets the ball headed to the basket, and he has an easy one-on-one situation against Robin Lopez. However, just as he’s about to pull up for an easy 10-footer, Roberson’s matchup, Denzel Valentine, completely leaves him and is able to disrupt the shot and force a miss:

George and Roberson succeed defensively when they share the court. However, when they play on offense together, the team has a 1980s-level 49.4 effective field-goal percentage. They just can’t put the ball in the hoop, and George missing mid-rangers can be attributed to both his current struggles and playing 470 minutes with the limited swingman. He can’t get as many open looks playing with that guy.

George has also been floundering in isolation. With Indiana last season, he was a solid ISO player, ranking in the 72.5 percentile with 0.94 points per possession. This season has featured a complete reversal; he’s all the way down at 0.8 PPP, leaving him in the 27.3 percentile.

A lot of his isolation struggles relate to what we just discussed: He’s missing mid-rangers and has no spacing.

This play is a sensational summation of his ISO problems so far this season, as he cooks Rudy Gay on his way to the rim only to be met by Davis Bertans, who is just completely not guarding Jerami Grant. George tries to adjust and finish over the 6’10” Bertans, but Gay recovers and swats the shot:

That’s hardly PG’s fault, as he had no options with the shot clock winding down. But it’s hurting his stats and shooting splits tremendously. And though his ISO numbers should come up from the basement at some point, they probably won’t reach last year’s levels, given the talent and roster composition around him.

George should continue to get better looks from deep with two top-50 players around him. His mid-range scoring numbers will also come closer to his career averages as he learns how to play on his first non-Indiana team. But even if his offensive numbers don’t trend up and he finishes the season with his current stats, one thing will remain true.

A 21/6/3 contributor who shoots 40 percent from three and functions as an elite defender is a sensational player. George is playing differently in 2017-18, but he’s still playing great.

Respect his game.

Follow Tony on Twitter @TEastNBA.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from NBA Math, Basketball Reference or NBA.com and are accurate as of Dec 8.