Paul George sustained a gruesome leg injury in a USA Basketball scrimmage and the incident involving the Indiana Pacers superstar revived debates about whether or not NBA teams should continue lending players to the national team.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver insisted, though, that the league will not stop helping the national team, saying that the unfortunate incident won't lead to a major change.
"Injuries can happen any place at any time. The experiences our players have enjoyed by participating in their national teams, however, are ones that are unique and special in almost every other way. At this point, I don't anticipate a major shift in the NBA's participation in international competitions," Silver said in a statement via ESPN.
The first-year commissioner admitted, though, that it would really re-open debates about allowing superstars to play in international tournaments.
"It seems clear, however, that this will be a topic at our next NBA competition committee meeting in September and our board of governors meeting in October. And, of course, we will continue to evaluate the pros and cons of participating in international tournaments," Silver said.
Indiana Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird admitted that George's injury will be a big blow to their campaign not only next season, but in years to come.
George is expected to miss the rest of the 2014-15 season and will have to regain his confidence moving forward, but Bird reiterated that they will continue supporting USA Basketball.
"We still support USA Basketball and believe in the NBA's goals of exposing our game, our teams and players worldwide," Bird said. "This is an extremely unfortunate injury that occurred on a highly visible stage, but could also have occurred anytime, anywhere."
USA national team coach Mike Krzyzewski echoed Bird's statement, saying that injuries can happen anytime - whether during practice, NBA game, or an international competition.
"Anything can happen anywhere, a lot of things happen," Krzyzewski said. "Tonight it happened during a basketball game. We need to take care of that. It doesn't mean it'll happen again and again and again; it means that it happened right now. And we need to take care of right now appropriately and then move on."
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