Six months ago, Blake Griffin was the third best player in the NBA. It was Stephen Curry and LeBron James at one and two, and then with Kevin Durant on the sidelines the argument for bronze came down to Griffin, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis.
Griffin propelled himself to the forefront of that argument with one of the most dominant 14 game runs in playoff history. In last year’s playoffs he averaged a 26-13-6 with a steal and a block a game on 51per cent shooting. Those numbers are stupid.
We all remember Chris Paul’s heroics in game seven to beat the Spurs, but Blake was the best player in that series. It took LeBron playing the basketball of his life to beat the Spurs in 2013. For the next two years San Antonio had an answer for everyone, until Blake.
The Spurs series was an exhibition for the entire Blake Griffin experience. He was a rim rattling brute force, rolling to the hoop like a freight train and overpowering defenders in the post, grinding them down into nothingness, like a sixth grader playing against second graders. Aron Baynes still wakes up in cold sweats screaming ‘GRIFFIN’ after game one of that series.
The power, the dunks and the rim rolls bring the bright lights to Blake but it’s the subtle work he does in the shadows which makes him a generational superstar. In the sky he’s breathtaking but on the ground he’s just as marvellous. Griffin is an eager, watchful ball of compressed energy, always seemingly on the verge of exploding into a vicious spin move or taking to the air. His genius though is that often just when you think he’s about to explode he’ll take a sip of red wine instead, artfully dishing a deft pass to the corner or a perfectly timed lob to DeAndre Jordan.
Griffin is one of the best big man passers of all time, an offensive savant who reads the game and executes like a point guard. His handle is natural and airtight which makes him the league’s most devastating transition force along with Westbrook and James.
Terrible free throw shooting and a Rajon Rondo-esque looking jump-shot (the release on his stroke seemed like it took 17 seconds every time) looked like they might limit Blake’s ceiling to sky destroying dunks early in his career. But he’s become solid from the line and a reliable mid-range shooter who has to be respected by defences.
Such improvement from a player who could have easily coasted to multiple All-Star games on the basis of his athleticism speaks to Griffin’s work ethic and desire to be a superstar. In the process he’s elevated himself a level above mere star players like Chris Bosh and LaMarcus Aldridge. The ability to hone his game and add nuance to his power also suggests that Griffin will eventually become comfortable shooting threes, which would make him the most devastating offensive player in the league next to Steph Curry.
Offensively Griffin is a monster, one of the game’s most unique and impactful stars. His defence is maligned but it’s not a glaring hole – he’s not Kevin Love. On D he’s solid enough but it’s still been the biggest disappointment of his career that a player with his athleticism, talent and savvy has never been able to become a game-changing defender, or at least a shot-blocking presence. Regardless, he’s quick enough to stay in front of guards on switches, he’s strong enough to defend in the post, and he can player center without it being a total catastrophe.
In terms of talent and output, Griffin is one of the game’s five to seven best players. And yet, doubts linger about his ability to be the best player on a championship contender. The Spurs series was an exhibition for all of Blake’s strengths, but it also underlined his weaknesses.
The Superman cape has always fitted Griffin a little too loosely. He seems to lose it in the clutch, becoming sloppy and oddly timid. His turnover at the end of game two against San Antonio cost the Clippers the game and seemed to stick in his head for the rest of the series. Griffin is the Clippers’ best player but at the end of games the ball is always in Chris Paul’s hands, which he seems a little too OK with. Deference is a virtue in basketball but reticence often is not.
Griffin’s game, for better or worse, has also come to emphasise nuance at the expense of power. In 2013-14, his best season, Griffin took 41 per cent of his shots at the rim and 8.4 free throw attempts per game. Those numbers are down to 29 per cent and 5.9 this season. By re-orienting his game to the outside, taking more jump shots and surveying the defence more with his passing at the elbows, Griffin is lessening the beating he used to take in the regular season. His playoff performance last season suggests that this is a switch that he can flick, but his re-orientation might have gone too far.
Blake takes a massive 46 per cent of his shots between 16 feet and the three point line, the dreaded long two range – the least efficient shot in basketball. He makes 40 per cent of those shots, a strong mark, but in taking so many of them he’s letting defences of the hook, and tempering what makes him such a special basketball player.
There’s also the thing where Blake might be the least likeable player in the league. He behaves like a petulant adolescent on the court, acting as though the world is eternally out to get him. He treats referees with the respect that Donald Trump accords ethnic minorities. His disdain for the men with whistles is so cold that it borders on weird and uncomfortable.
He also just broke his hand by punching a team official, sentencing himself to a possible two months on the sidelines. ‘The Punch Heard Around Toronto’ combined with the Clippers’ success sans Griffin has prompted discussion about whether he should be traded. The Clippers have gone 15-3 since Griffin went down and for the season they’re only a meagre two points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor (by comparison, in the same metric the Clippers are 15.8 points better with Paul on the court, and 14.8 points better with Jordan).
On paper trading Griffin makes sense. The offence seems more logical centred around Paul and Jordan pick and rolls with shooters surrounding them. Without Blake and his need for the ball around the elbows, spacing is less cramped and the Clippers can go small more often. The defence will not suffer.
Such trade chatter likely would never have surfaced without Golden State and the way they’re changing basketball. The Warriors are making the big man who plays in the post, doesn’t shoot threes, and can’t really protect the rim an NBA dinosaur. Griffin fits that mould, and when he plays alongside Jordan, who doesn’t space the floor at all, the Clippers are dead in the water against Golden State’s death line-up with Draymond Green at the five.
The fatal flaw of the Clippers is that two of their three best players, both on max contracts, are big men who don’t shoot threes. Such roster construction in 2016 is almost impossible to overcome. Doc Rivers has tried to make it work with Griffin and Jordan but one gets the sense that he knows that it’s futile. Tellingly, down the stretch of game seven against the Spurs he tethered Jordan to the bench and played Griffin at the five.
In this modern NBA it seems like the two big men can’t coexist. Given his off-court drama, superior value and the fact that he’s a less clean fit in the four-out with a rim protector Warrior ball league, Griffin appears to be the more logical trade candidate. But to trade Griffin would be to misunderstand a fundamental truth about basketball: revolution isn’t dictated by ideas; it’s dictated by the talent of the best players.
The NBA didn’t suddenly just realise that basketball makes more sense if you have four shooters surrounding a rim rolling, rim protecting big man. What it realised is that Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are unique, perfectly complementary generational talents, and that system is the best way to maximise their strengths.
Imitation is a sincere form of flattery, but it’s also often a myopic form. The Warriors are the present, but they won’t always be the future. The game will continue to evolve, and different talents will become more prized. The only thing you can count on is having the best talent you can possibly find. And you can count of Blake Griffin continuing to be pretty damn talented.
The Clippers are not a title contender in their present form. Griffin and Jordan don’t fit and the team still doesn’t have a capable small forward or small ball four. They could trade Griffin and Jamal Crawford for Carmelo Anthony and Arron Afflalo, which the Knicks would do in a heartbeat, and their team would make more sense on paper for the 2016 NBA. A starting line-up of Paul, J.J. Redick, Afflalo, Anthony and Jordan is a mighty fine Warriors impression. But it’s only an impression and it’s still not better than the real thing. The present might become more tantalising with such a trade, but the future would become definitively less optimistic.
Jordan is the Clipper who should be traded. He’s unplayable at times in fourth quarters because of his free throw shooting and he can’t punish teams going small by posting up (although he can punish them on the offensive glass). He’s a top two rebounder in the league, an elite shot blocker and an above average defender (although an overrated one). But if the Clippers have to move one of their big three it should be Jordan.
Chris Paul is the team’s conductor and heart and soul, and Griffin is its most dynamic talent and at 26 still L.A.’s brightest hope for the future. There is plenty of merit to the idea of playing a big man at the five around four shooters, but that big man for L.A. should be Griffin before Jordan. The team would be unstoppable on offence and simply have to hope that mother necessity adapts Griffin into the defender that his athleticism and basketball IQ suggest that he could, and probably should be.
The Clippers should look to move Jordan for the two-way wing they’ve lacked in the Paul era, as well as someone who can play spot minutes at center to take the load off Griffin. A trade with Jordan, Jae Crowder and Amir Johnson as the principals makes sense for both L.A. and Boston.
Chris Paul turns an old 31 in May and J.J. Redick will be 32 a month later. Paul Pierce is likely in his last NBA relevant season. The Clippers’ time needs to be now, but it hasn’t proven to be. They’re seventh in the league in net rating, behind Toronto and Boston, and light years behind the big three in the West. As presently constructed, the Clippers are not making the Finals. They need to make a change, but the change should not be getting rid of Blake Griffin – it should be finding a way to put him in the best position to succeed.
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