It gives vertigo but you almost have to ask who remembers blake griffin. For one thing, the Pistons weren’t in the Florida bubble. And for the teams that did not arrive (except for those that always have noise behind: Knicks, Warriors …), that absence has erased them, at least temporarily, from the collective consciousness of the NBAThey haven’t played a game in more than seven months, to begin with. The Pistons, a league classic, were left out in a terrible year, in which they ended up with 30% victories (20-46) and began to dismantle a project that was no longer going anywhere and whose new direction depends on the general manager hired to make the change: Troy Weaver.
Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson are no longer there and they end their contract and surely there will be no more news of them in MoTown Tony Snell (although he has a player option of 12 million) and Brandon Knight. The accounts will be very lightened between this postseason and the next in a team in which Luke Kennard, Sekou Doumbouya, Bruce Brown, Svi Mykhailiuk are supposed to take a step forward … and that will try to retain Christian Wood, surely his best news of last season (more than 13 points and 6 rebounds per game). So the question is obvious:what does blake griffin look like in all that? What place can it have in these transitioning pistons on the way to 32 years old and with a contract of 36.8 million next season and a player option of 38.9 in 2021-22?
In principle, very little. And less if you consider that it is an optimal trick to obtain not only flexibility in the accounts but pieces of the future, via players or draft (the Pistons will pick with number 20 in the next issue). At least, if the franchises with top-tier aspirations consider that Griffin is still in a position to help. Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe, on his podcast, talked about their good fit with the Warriors, for example, and stressed that there would be a market with the power forward, which the Pistons wouldn’t find without good deals on him.
The point is, the bidder has to know if Griffin is fit. Last season, the power forward only played 18 games and seemed seriously diminished.. In December he stopped permanently and in January he had surgery on his left knee for the second time in eight months. He had also undergone surgery after the 2019 playoffs, to which he almost led only his team. That effort burst that knee and knocked him out for the middle of a storyless first round against the Milwaukee Bucks. That effort, in short, cost him a physical punishment that it is difficult to know if it left its mark for the entire rest of a player’s career who gave, of course, an example of professionalism, commitment and leadership.
And in good health, at least until those final problems: He played 75 games at one level, while holding his knee, exceptional: 24.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 36% in triples. He was all star (for the sixth time) and entered the Third Quintet of the season. Without the physique of the old days, he demonstrated enormous maturity and obvious improvement as a marksman, a key advance in navigating the last leg of his career… and then he went to the operating room. That Blake Griffin is still an elite player and an optimal piece for almost any team. But the question is how irreparable was the damage he did to his knee to carry the weight of the Pistons in a really heroic season individually.
Griffin, No. 1 in the draft in 2009, already he completely lost what would have been his first season (2009-10) due to problems in that same left knee. After some excellent years in the Clippers, injuries tormented him between 2015 and 2018, when the union with Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan aspired to break the historical curse of his team, which in those seasons only had 35, 61 and 58 games and lived his frustrating injuries in the playoffs, the moment of truth. In July 2017, the Clippers gave him $ 173 million for five years. They promised to be the king of an aspiring team, they honored him with the motto “Clipper for life”… And sent to Detroit in January 2018. The toughest face of the NBA business and a test that Griffin responded to with admirable behavior. That, of course, can attest in Detroit.
Griffin is a veteran, has a knee on red alert and a contract with two monster seasons remaining. (one way player option). But he’s also a player who can make any team better in a market where there are few truly differential free agents and the Pistons can be very inclined to sell. The opportunity is there. The risk is great… but the reward can be too.
