Paul George Says Things About Ray Rice, Domestic Violence. Stupid Things.

Indiana Pacers star Paul George may be out for the season with a knee injury, but at least he’s finding ways to keep busy during what is expected to be a lengthy rehab. Things like, for example, offering his two cents on the Ray Rice domestic assault scandal, which has been one of the biggest sports stories of the year and dominated the news since Monday.

A 24-year-old NBA player with too much time on his hands offering his insights on a complex and highly controversial issue via Twitter—what could go wrong? Ya know, besides everything. 

These were George’s first two tweets, which have understandably been deleted. It’s nice that he doesn’t condone “hittin women,” which is an okay start, but after that this whole thing takes a very unfortunate turn.

George seems a lot more concerned about the suddenly fragile psyche of poor Ray Rice than the woman he knocked out cold in an elevator and then dragged around like a sack of dirty laundry.

But hey…if she ain’t trippin.

Unfortunately, he continued.

George goes on to suggest that Janay Palmer was the real instigator of the altercation and that she was “attacking” Rice, despite the video clearly proving that was not the case.

In short, he says Palmer had it coming and that what Rice did doesn’t even qualify as assault—just a momentary lapse in judgement. If that.

Not long after he posted them, the tweets disappeared, replaced with a bullshit apology that you know damn well didn’t come from George. They PR flunky that crafted that message didn’t even bother trying to make it look legit.

Pacers President of Basketball Operations Larry Bird issued a statement on George’s statements:

“Paul George’s tweets from earlier were thoughtless and without regard to the subject of domestic violence and its seriousness in society. We have talked to Paul to strongly express our displeasure and made it clear that the NBA and the Pacers’ organization will not condone or tolerate remarks of this nature. Paul understands that he was wrong and why his tweets were so inappropriate and is very apologetic.”

The Pacers also released an apologetic statement which they laughably claim is from George, which is such a bunch of bullshit that it’s not even worth repeating. Perhaps Bird legitimately believes what he said, but Paul George doesn’t.

George was quite frank about his thoughts and there is no way in hell a very brief conversation changed a very fundamental belief that domestic assault is a victimless crime if the victim isn’t “trippin.”

The reality here is that George believes Rice is the real victim and that his wife—the mother of his children—had it coming.