Tip-In Points Isolation: Blake Griffin
There are three stages to every karaoke experience. The first is the stage in which one is just so jazzed to hear somebody – anybody – singing Salt ‘n’ Peppa’s “Shoop” that you hurl yourself into the drunken throng and decide to go up on stage next. We’ll call this the Excitement Stage. Next, is the stage in which one stupidly chooses to attempt CCR’s “Suzie Q” and remembers three minutes into the performance that the song is not only seven minutes long, but tasks the singer to say the words “Suzie” and “Q” hundreds of times before it’s over. We’ll call this the Reality Stage. The final stage starts immediately after one steps off stage and decides that although they performed awesomely, there remained some room for improvement. This is usually followed up with a drunken attempt at a Police song that is way out of their range. We’ll call this the Selective Amnesia Stage. This is the stage most fantasy hoopsters find themselves in now with Blake Griffin.
All signs point to Blake Superior’s knee being perfectly healthy and he’s quickly becoming the chic pick for Rookie of the Year. Everything that’s old is new again. Blake Griffin ROY talk, that was sooo summer ’09. By winter, we all moved on to Brandon Jennings ROY talk. I guess, just like backless suits, Griffin ROY picks are never fully out of fashion. John Wall is for the bourgeoisie. DeMarcus Cousins is for the counter-culture naves. Griffin is for people of scholarly upbringing and discerning elegance.
… Except that Griffin was projected to average 18/10 with a FT% of .610 and fewer than three assists last season. Considering he’ll still land somewhere in that range, I’m as unconvinced that’s enough to surpass Cousins or Wall’s output as I am that those averages would have earned him the ROY nod over Tyreke Evans last season. Griffin is still a beast, just as Greg Oden is still a beast, but he’s a beast with a year’s worth of worry about re-injury and rust. All of this, on top of Vinny Del Negro taking over the reigns in L.A. and finding new and intriguing ways not to play his best players during stretches where he really should be playing his best players. Have fun with Griffin, just understand that he might not be able to hit all the high notes the second time around. 31 mpg / .560 / .610 / 0.0 3pt / 17.5 ppg / 9.5 rpg / 2.1 apg / 1.3 spg / 0.9 bpg / 3.1 tov
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