Clippers have to trade Blake Griffin!
Do they, really?
I wasn’t surprised how this scenario came across the Internet, the Internet is a beautiful place for panicking and overreacting, people need that, they live and die by that.
What I was surprised though, is how so many sport writers went there as well. I even heard guys from First Take, but heck, they are for the entertainment, can’t take them seriously. Blake is a ball stopper and doesn’t make his teammates better? C’mon.
15–3 Without Blake
So before everything, let’s take a closer look on why the Clippers are 15–3 without Blake Griffin and how their metrics actually got better.
Luc Mbah a Moute
Even before Blake got injured, Luc Mbah a Moute was introduced in the starting line up after a SF experiment that passed through Lance, Wes and Pierce.
Luc is the best and more consistent defender Clippers have. Wasn’t that DJ? No way, DJ is probably the 3rd best defender on the Clippers. Mbah a Moute can basically defend any position, he is rock solid, if you watch him closely, you’ll see how good he is, he defended LBJ, he couldn’t back him up and when he was defending LBJ, LBJ only got points out in transition, not even jumpers. He even defended Anthony Davis at times!
So he brings solid defense, he can switch and that makes him very versatile and the Clippers can mimic a bit of what makes small ball D from Warriors so good.
As noted by some, he is pretty limited on offense, he is not particulary athletic and neither a good shooter. Lowe brought that as an big issue coming the Playoffs — something like how Tony Allen was guarded by Bogut? — , but I’ve seen him playing like Matt Barness did with the Clippers last season. He simply needs to shoot the open 3 and cut to the basket when there is an opening, this way defenders will have to respect him enough, either way the starters are fine, they have plenty of fire power.
Doc has other options if they can give up a bit of defense at the forward position, be it Pierce, Wes or even Lance. Bottom line, Mbah a Moute greatly improved Clippers’ D and the starters.
Pablo Prigioni and Cole Aldrich
With Blake’s injury and Josh Smith’s experiment failure, Doc went to Cole to be the bench’s big man. Heck, it worked!
It worked because without a true playmaker, the bench was a wreck and completely unstable. Even with ball movement, they would go nowhere because they were a such a strict perimeter unit, by “overspacing” if you can even call it, you were actually ruining good spacing.
On defense Josh was good and even had some nice blocks but on offense, he would play small ball 5 but staying behind the 3-point line, with no presence in the paint, it was much easier to defend the Clippers.
Cole brought that inside presence and he is much more skilled than people had antecipated, he has some nice footwork, hook shots and he passes pretty well — he just doesn’t have athleticism, proved by a lot of missed dunks. With opponents having to honor his presence there, it brings true spacing to the bench unit and that was step one.
The step two came when Austin tweaked his ankle and Doc had to play Prigioni. Prigioni is a pure PG, he is a playmaker, he can run pick and roll and keep his dribble alive until something opens up.
Before Pablo Prigioni, the ballhandling duties were divided between Austin Rivers and Jamal Crawford, Austin is a terrible PG, he is a combo guard, he can’t run a simple pick and roll without getting trapped, losing the dribble or committing a TO. Don’t get me wrong, he has become a great defender and although an average shooter — or worse — he can score and hebecame well above average finisher around the rim but he can’t run a simple pick and roll for his life.
Crawford has shown that when needed he is a capable playmaker, for the past couple of seasons, every time CP3 misses some games, Crawford was able to get double digit assists but then, you lose Crawford the scorer.
So Prigioni sealed the bench’s stability. Now you have an paint presence in Cole and a playmaker in Prigioni, if things don’t go well in the first 12 seconds you can then give the ball to Austin or Crawford so they can try to go one on one and if there is less than 8 seconds, just give it to Jamal.
There are tons of Crawford’s haters out there wanting to trade him since 1946, but even with his D — or lack of it — he is much more valuable for the Clippers than any other team, so even if the Clippers wanted, he would be hard to trade. Since playing with Prigioni, both Austin and Crawford got a lot more efficient on the floor and when Crawford gets it going, he can seal a W for the Clippers by himself with his scoring and late clock shots.
He used to take some very questionable shots but lately he has played within the system, only goes one-on-one when the clock is running out or when he has a mismatch, plus he has being driving to the basket much more than his usual. He does his crossovers and hesitation dribble, drives and some how he gets it.
I say that because he will soon be 36, he is not super athletic or anything like that, I don’t really know if it’s because he uses the glass so well or because at times he jumps with the other foot to mess with the shot blocker timing, but somehow he has been pretty successful with his drives to the basket.
Shooting slump!
Last but not least, this is something that needs to be addressed. CP started the season with some hand injuries and he took some games to get his shooting back.
Redick also started cold, his shots were not falling at all. That without counting Pierce, Jamal, Austin and Wesley Johnson. Three of them were only able to shake up the slump in the last month or so, with Pierce, Jamal and Austin shooting better, of course the team became better.
Are the Clippers better without Blake?
No, they are not, that’s a typical fallacy from simple-minded people, there is no other way to put it. None of the main things that made the Clippers better happened BECAUSE of Blake’s absense.
Clippers also had a relatively easy schedule in Blake’s absense, which also helped. But as you can see, the reasons of why the Clippers were able to sustain a 15–3 record without Blake are non Blake-related. The Clippers’ starters were the best offensive unit of the NBA for the past 2 seasons, and yes, that includes the Warriors as well.
The starting unit was never really a problem, the bench was. Last season, a big part of Clippers choking — again — in the 2nd round of the Playoffs was because they ran out of gas. With such a thin and terrible bench, the starters would work their butt off to put them in the lead, just so the bench would turn a double digit lead into a double digit deficit. At some point the starters couldn’t dig them out of the role and they lost.
So we can only expect the Clippers to be better when Blake is back. The issue now is that instead of already being back, Griffin will only come back by the end of March or even later. As I already said, less time for him to get in rhythm, get in shape and play in sync with the rest of the team.
I think that it will be more of a game shape issue rather than anything else, the starting unit has no issue, the bench is finally looking like a unit, so in theory, the Clippers should play a pretty good basketball when he comes back.
As Blake will be completely healed from his quad injury, he should be able to be in good shape and even in game shape. And hopefully he will have added some new moves for his left hand, that’s the least to try to make up for his stupidity in breaking his hand.
