The Clippers would be foolish to send Blake Griffin packing
Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers recently told anybody who thinks his team is better without Blake Griffin has pretty much gone mad.
Detractors could argue that when Griffin has missed time, the Clippers have really been just fine. Take this season for instance. Can anybody even remember the last time Griffin suited up? It was Christmas Day. The Clips snapped a three-game skid to the Lakers.
Since then the Clippers are 18-5 while Griffin has sat out, first with a torn tendon in his left quad and then the broken right hand from the fight with a team employee that got Griffin suspended for four games once he is able to play again.
So, it isn't totally implausible to suggest that the Clippers (35-18) actually have been a better team with Griffin out of the lineup. However, how quickly some forget that L.A. did pretty well, too, two seasons ago when Chris Paul missed 18 games and the Clippers went 12-6 and, in fact, were 12-4 before losing the final two games of Paul's absence.
The question now for the Clippers as Thursday's trade deadline creeps closer is if they truly are serious about entertaining offers for a 26-year-old power forward that almost any team in the NBA would love to have.
While rumors have remained persistent that the organization is willing to listen, reports by those who cover the team closest bring only news that Griffin isn't going anywhere. As for recent rumblings that the Clippers had talks with Denver to swap Griffin in a deal that would include the Nuggets' Kenneth Faried, Danillo Gallinari, Will Barton and Nikola Jokic, Dan Woike of the Orange County Register quoted one Clippers executive as saying, "100 percent not true."
There really isn't a compelling reason why the Clippers should seek to push through a trade now for Griffin unless Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti comes calling with Kevin Durant. And that's just not happening.
Teams don't trade 6-foot-10, 250-pound forces of nature, especially ones who continually get better each season, and even ones who do dumb things, like break their hand by punching a team employee.
Before the quad injury, Griffin was averaging 23.2 points, 8.7 rebounds and 5.0 assists. He was shooting better than 50 percent from the floor and for a third consecutive season he has his free-throw percentage above 71. Is that a player a franchise seeking a championship deals?
There is a caveat here, but it doesn't pertain to dealing Griffin in a couple of days. The Clippers have not advanced past the second round of the playoffs in the previous four seasons that Paul and Griffin have played together. And last year's second-round meltdown to the Rockets reached a new low for disappointment.
The Clippers appear as though they'll head steady with the No. 4 seed. They would get the No. 5 seed in the first round, which at the moment is anybody's guess, and then the likely No. 1 seed Golden State Warriors in the second round, obviously not an easy task.
If the Clips were to get blown away in such a series, owner Steve Ballmer might then seriously question the direction of the roster moving into the 2016-17 season.
But even then the Clippers will have to ask themselves a difficult question: Is Griffin really the right player to set free, or is the soon-to-be 31-year-old Paul the one who should go?
There are few easy answers, but there is indeed one if the question is if L.A. should trade Griffin in the next 48 hours.
And that answer is no.
