Paul George Puts Podcast On Hold To Focus On Rest Of Season

The latest episode of Paul George‘s ‘Podcast P’ podcast, which featured guest Dwight Howard and came out on Monday, will be the last one for the foreseeable future, according to George, who announced that he’s taking a hiatus from the podcast in order to focus his full attention on the home stretch of the Sixers‘ season.

“I want to let the Podcast P family know that after today’s episode with Dwight, I plan to take a break from the pod just to focus on getting my body right, getting mentally right, and helping this squad make a push towards our goal to finish the season out and give ourselves a chance to be in contention to compete for a championship,” George announced (Twitter video link).

On the heels of that announcement, George went out and scored 25 points, his highest total since Jan. 24, on Wednesday in New York. The Sixers were unable to hang onto a late lead following a 19-point comeback and ultimately lost to the Knicks, but George had his best game in weeks, complementing his scoring by contributing eight rebounds, seven assists, and three steals. He was asked after the game about his decision to pause his podcast, as Tim Bontemps of ESPN relays.

“It was more so just to focus on here,” George said. “I haven’t been the healthiest, so it’s just been putting a ton of work towards getting my body as healthy as possible, and to keep focus of obviously being here and trying to turn things around here and the full focus is trying to get this team together.

“But we got to give ourselves a chance. Take it one game at a time, but we got to give ourselves a chance to see what we can do down the stretch.”

George, who signed a four-year, maximum-salary contract with Philadelphia last July, has had one of his worst seasons as a pro in 2024/25, averaging just 16.4 points per game, his lowest mark in a full season since 2011/12. His .432 FG% and .358 3PT% are also below his career rates.

Like fellow Sixers star Joel Embiid, George has been hampered by injuries this season and has faced criticism from some fans for regularly putting out podcast episodes while the team’s record has plummeted to 20-38. He said on Wednesday that he’d been thinking about temporarily stepping away from his side project for some time.

“It was something that was kind of racking in my head a little bit just because of [being] new to the city, being acclimated to Philadelphia,” George said, per Bontemps. “It just came to the point where it was like, ‘All right, this is the time to kind of take a step back for a second.'”

Despite their ugly 20-38 record, the sixth-worst mark in the league, the 76ers aren’t out of play-in contention. They currently sit 2.5 games back of the No. 10 Bulls. Of course, George himself acknowledged on Monday that Philadelphia has shown “no signs” of being a playoff-caliber team.

According to Bontemps, the Sixers are expected to make a decision in the coming days on whether or not Embiid will be shut down for the season due to his nagging knee injury. If he is, it will be interesting to see whether the club takes similar steps with George and Tyrese Maxey, who is battling a right finger injury that’s affecting his ball-handling and shooting. Maxey shot just 12-of-32 from the floor on Wednesday, including 0-of-10 on three-pointers.