Now 34 years old, Blake Griffin is having trouble landing a job in free agency. If he does sign somewhere, it'll likely be in a reserve role. Last season for the Celtics, he played a total of 569 minutes in the regular season and only 6 minutes in the playoffs.
If Griffin's career ends with a whimper or a blurb buried at the bottom of ESPN, it'll be understating the impact of a player who had a major (albeit brief) influence on the league.
PART ONE: Instant Impact On the Court
Playing for his local University of Oklahoma, Blake Griffin had a strong freshman year. He averaged 14.7 points (on 56.8% from the field) and 9.1 rebounds. The consensus from NBA scouts was that Griffin was a likely top lottery pick, and could have presumably climbed into the top 5-6 with strong workouts.
However, Griffin must have felt there was still some work to do and still some upside on the table. He wasn't getting quite the national attention or draft respect he thought he may deserve, so he made the unconventional decision to return to college for his sophomore year. And there, Griffin removed all doubts that he had star potential. He put up monster numbers (22.7 points, 14.4 rebounds) and led the Sooners to a 30-6 record and an Elite Eight appearance. He was named the National Player of the Year and became the obvious # 1 pick in the draft.
Griffin got injured and missed his first year for the L.A. Clippers, setting up a highly-anticipated "rookie" season the following year. Griffin delivered -- and then some. That first year, Griffin averaged 22.5 points, 12.1 rebounds (a career high), and 3.8 assists. He was not only named as the easy "Rookie of the Year," but he actually made the All-Star team and got on an MVP ballot -- finishing 10th overall.
Based on stats and accolades alone, you can argue that Blake Griffin had the best rookie season of the 2000s and perhaps the best since Tim Duncan.
PART TWO: Instant Impact Off the Court
More impressive still, Blake Griffin did all that for the Clippers. It may be hard for younger NBA fans to understand how rotten the franchise had been at the time. The name "Clippers" was synonymous with "sucks ass." Since re-branding as the Clippers in 1978, the franchise made the playoffs 4 times. In 32 years. They were run by the deplorable and racist owner Donald Sterling, whose stink rotted the entire organization. At the time, the Clippers were the worst brand in the NBA.
That really did change with the arrival and optimism of Blake Griffin's prowess. Griffin became a star, and the fortunes turned for the franchise. The next year, the team traded for Chris Paul. Presumably, Paul wouldn't have agreed to join the team without a promising talent like Griffin on the roster. Two years later, the team hired Doc Rivers, whose stock was at an all-time high after his successful run with the Boston Celtics. Again, the idea that the Clippers could lure in a star coach would have been unthinkable a few years prior.
Thanks to Griffin (and Chris Paul, whose statistical impact can't be over-stated either), the Clippers went on an unprecedented run of success for the franchise. They won 50+ games five years in a row. And while that didn't result in an NBA Finals appearance, it did change the perception about the franchise. That only cemented a few years later, when Sterling was forced out and Steve Ballmer jumped in to provide stability (and deep pockets) to the team.
Right now, you'd put the Clippers into the "glamor market" tier -- a place where superstars may actually want to play. There are a variety of reasons why, but Blake Griffin's initial success did set the table for a lot of it. For that reason, his career goes behind numbers and W-L records and ranks as one of the most impactful in the broader NBA landscape.
PART THREE: An Underrated Skill Set
When I suggest that Blake Griffin's career may be misunderstood or underrated, it's in regard to his actual basketball skill. There's a perception that Griffin came into the league as an "athlete." A dunker. In fact, his most defining basketball moment may have been his Dunk Contest win. And then, when he started to suffer injuries, he started to evolve his game to fit his declining athleticism.
That's not wholly true. The truth is, Griffin was always an underrated playmaker. He had great handles for his size and position and a good passing instinct. That's illustrated by his 3.8 assists as a rookie -- but also during the times when he was allowed to fully showcase his skill set.
When Chris Paul came to the team (in Griffin's second year) and took over the primary ballhandling duties, Griffin didn't always get the opportunity to show his full "bag." When he did take that alpha dog role, he shined. In 2013-14, CP3 missed 20 games due to injury, and Griffin responded with a career year and finished 3rd in MVP voting.
We also saw that play out in 2018-19 after Griffin had lost a step and ended up in Detroit. It's largely a forgotten period in his career, but Griffin did have a brief standout stretch for the Pistons. That season, he averaged 24.5 points and 5.4 assists and helped a mediocre Detroit team make the playoffs.
These numbers -- a big averaging 4/5/6 assists -- don't really jump off the page in the modern NBA where we can see Nikola Jokic putting up 30/10/10 every night -- but they represent one of the better playmaking numbers for the PF position during that era.
PART FOUR: A Whole Bunch of Hypotheticals
While Blake Griffin had a great NBA career and a good amount of team success with the Clippers, you can't help but wonder if they could have done more as a group together. "What if?"
Maybe the team simply wasn't good enough. Maybe they'd never have won a title. But you can squint and see potential room for improvement from the club.
A lot of that is injury related, but I would say some of it was due to human error as well. The Clippers had a well-rounded starting four -- PG Chris Paul, SG J.J. Redick, PF Blake Griffin, and C DeAndre Jordan -- with an obvious hole in the middle at SF. It's a riddle that they were never quite able to solve as Matt Barnes started to age and decline.
The Clippers had some chances to fill it, but didn't take advantage. They cut Joe Ingles in training camp -- a heady well-rounded player that would have fit perfectly. They marginalized and traded a young Reggie Bullock -- another player who could have fit well as a 3+D wing.
Instead of taking a chance and developing young talent, Doc Rivers (as he's inclined to do) tapped the well of overrated and over-aged players instead. In Rivers' first year on the job as the coach and primary GM, he brought in a slew of over-the-hill veterans: Danny Granger (who was cooked by then), Big Baby Davis (same), Hedo Turkoglu (age 34), Stephen Jackson (age 35), and Antawn Jamison (age 37). All five of those players were out of the league by the end of the following year.
Rather than learn his lesson, Rivers kept striking out instead. He made the wrong choice repeatedly, falling back on old loyalties and biases rather than what was plainly in front of him. He over-played (and overpaid) his own son Austin Rivers as a result of that. But perhaps the epitome of Rivers' front office failures was the Clippers decision to bring in Paul Pierce (then age 38) at the tail end of his career. Sadly, it wasn't with the intention of using Pierce as a veteran mentor: it was with the intention of playing him minutes. At that age, Pierce wasn't up to the task. He shot 36.3% from the field and looked unplayable. Rather than realize that, Rivers started Pierce for 38 games. Somehow, the Clippers still won 51 games that year.
You do wonder what the Clippers could have been if they had a more competent coach in charge (or at least, had taken away Doc Rivers' personnel power earlier).
PART FIVE: Cruel Fate and Cruel Fists
It'd be incomplete to write about Blake Griffin's career and not mention the long list of injuries that's plagued him throughout. We can't blame that on Doc Rivers.
(Well, maybe we can, if you factor in that the Clippers overplayed Griffin early in his career. Like Zion Williamson, he's a power player who plays with a lot of intensity, and requires a lighter touch than other stars).
Still, Griffin got hurt a lot and that may have been bound to happen regardless. We can also blame him specifically for the injury when he fractured his hand after punching a trainer.
There's also some "inevitability" to Griffin's limited career when you consider his body type. He's a thick guy, but he has a limited wingspan (at 6'11"). When you're not very long, you're going to be limited as a shot blocker regardless of your athleticism. We saw that play out in his NBA career -- where he's only averaged 0.5 blocks per game -- and we're seeing that play out with Zion Williamson in New Orleans now.
If Griffin was a little taller or longer, teams would have been able to play him more often as a smallball "big" (which they probably should have done anyway). The one area where Griffin did adjust his game to fit his declining athleticism was by shooting more threes -- and he did that reasonably well -- but he couldn't overcome his lack of length in the same way. (He also got better at comedy!, going from a little overexposed early to solid comedic performer at the Comedy Central roasts).
TL; DR
Overall, it'll be interesting to see how history remembers the career of Blake Griffin (if this is indeed the end for him). As mentioned, he had an oversized impact for his franchise early on, then eventually got derailed by injuries.
In terms of basketball, is he going to be a Hall of Famer? That's TBD. He's a six-time All-Star, but never made the Finals and never won MVP. Basketball-reference lists his Hall of Fame probability at 54.8%, which may be optimistic.
Still, I'd maintain that Blake Griffin had one of the most impactful, underrated, misunderstood, and infuriating careers in our era for a variety of reasons.
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