Was Blake Griffin's first season better than his last and this one so far?

[Cracka2HI!]

WOW, a lot to read here. My only comment on the Rondo for CP3 talk is...LOL! I don't think Blake has regressed. He is being too passive and is banged up right now. He's not getting the ball in perfect position enough. He gets it close to where he wants but has not been able to just turn and attack the rim enough. He ends up passing it out most times. I think he'll be just fine, but he does look to be struggling.

To answer to question of the OP. Blake is certainly better than his rookie year. That team didn't win much and it was all about him. Everyone on the team was looking for him. Now everyone is looking to make the best play...including him.

[Chronz]

WOW, a lot to read here. My only comment on the Rondo for CP3 talk is...LOL! I don't think Blake has regressed. He is being too passive and is banged up right now. He's not getting the ball in perfect position enough. He gets it close to where he wants but has not been able to just turn and attack the rim enough. He ends up passing it out most times. I think he'll be just fine, but he does look to be struggling.

To answer to question of the OP. Blake is certainly better than his rookie year. That team didn't win much and it was all about him. Everyone on the team was looking for him. Now everyone is looking to make the best play...including him.

You already know the gist of my post as you echoed my same thoughts.

CP3 isnt the reason for Blake's struggles, most of what CN was complaining about were either outright fallacies or unsubstantiated. Blake is actually getting more post touches and more drives, hes just not playing as much minutes and hes not finishing as effectively as he did the last 2 years. Either teams have learned how to take away his forays to the rim or hes noticeably less athletic and unable to exploit collapsing defenses.

I dont know what people are expecting but for him to regress is a troubling sign if its not a result of injury. What it implies if hes not just hurting is that hes not the franchise player we thought he was. If hes so utterly dependent on the playmaking of others then we have it harder than I imagined.

And yes the Rondo talk was ridiculous for many reasons I wont rehash now.

[Chronz]

Chronz good stats and I respect the time you put into them. If you've seen me post on this topic more on the Clippers forum and here you'd see I actually have blasted Blake every other game for being too passive. That being said CP3 is the veteran leader, best player, superstar, floor general and POINT GUARD. He commands the floor so I feel he can do a lot more to get our bigs involved.

Blake being passive is likely due to the injury issues and him being mentally weaker than I thought. He seems to be so focused on proving critics wrong that he's improved all of the knocks tremendously BUT neglected his strengths in the process. His rebounding is down because he's shooting too many damn jumpers. His scoring is down because jumpers are ALWAYS a lower percentage shot than a dunk or rim attack and he's getting less free throws.

He needs to understand that the shot should be secondary to space the floor a bit and NEVER his MAIN weapon. He's not Dirk, he needs to be Barkley/Malone. Go hard in the paint but be capable of hitting shots, never depending on it.

Seems to me CP3 is doing his part (our bigs are getting more touches than last year), what Id like to see from him is more selfishness but I guess hes trying to get everyone else going while saving his legs for the playoffs.

Your rebounding point is true, guess he cant be like Love and be both an outlet option and dominant rebounder. I hope your wrong because thats a pitifully low rate even considering his jumpshot tendency. Hes not taking as many jumpers as a guy like Dirk did, yet they are posting comparable(prime) offensive rebounding rates. Im hoping its part of a bigger strat by Vinny to get back on D but you gotta think Blake has the athleticism to crash and get back alil more.

Hes not finishing in the paint with same efficiency so that gives me hope that hes just not up to speed yet.

I would be hoping for that too, you dont want your franchise guy to be this dependent on the system/teammates to exonerate his lack of production.

[Clippersfan86]

Seems to me CP3 is doing his part (our bigs are getting more touches than last year), what Id like to see from him is more selfishness but I guess hes trying to get everyone else going while saving his legs for the playoffs.

Your rebounding point is true, guess he cant be like Love and be both an outlet option and dominant rebounder. I hope your wrong because thats a pitifully low rate even considering his jumpshot tendency. Hes not taking as many jumpers as a guy like Dirk did, yet they are posting comparable(prime) offensive rebounding rates. Im hoping its part of a bigger strat by Vinny to get back on D but you gotta think Blake has the athleticism to crash and get back alil more.

Hes not finishing in the paint with same efficiency so that gives me hope that hes just not up to speed yet.

I would be hoping for that too, you dont want your franchise guy to be this dependent on the system/teammates to exonerate his lack of production.

Yea I gotta admit Love is pretty special to be taking long shots so regularly AND being an elite rebounder (the best probably). Maybe Blake just isn't putting in 110 percent like he should. I remember rookie Blake had a legendary motor like others have pointed out. Last two years his motor is declining more and more which is troubling. I miss the Blake that NEVER quit and went all out every play.

I understand he needed to learn to pace himself a bit but not to this degree.

[Cracka2HI!]

You already know the gist of my post as you echoed my same thoughts.

CP3 isnt the reason for Blake's struggles, most of what CN was complaining about were either outright fallacies or unsubstantiated. Blake is actually getting more post touches and more drives, hes just not playing as much minutes and hes not finishing as effectively as he did the last 2 years. Either teams have learned how to take away his forays to the rim or hes noticeably less athletic and unable to exploit collapsing defenses.

I dont know what people are expecting but for him to regress is a troubling sign if its not a result of injury. What it implies if hes not just hurting is that hes not the franchise player we thought he was. If hes so utterly dependent on the playmaking of others then we have it harder than I imagined.

And yes the Rondo talk was ridiculous for many reasons I wont rehash now.

I definitely think he's not right, but I think the bigger issue is he is struggling to use all of his skills on offense. He has more post moves and is shooting the mid range shot well. I don't think he is desisive when he gets the ball. He's thinking too much. He just needs to get comfortable with his new skill set....I hope. If not we aren't as good of as team moving forward. His lacking of rebounding is also troubling.

I agree that CP3 needs to be more selfish. If Blake's not going we really need him over 20. We had too many games where Blake had 14 and CP3 had 16 during the losing streak. One of those guys needs to be around 25 every night.

[D-Leethal]

No, it was just less overrated.

[kylem4711]

pare

that not the correct spelling?

[Clippersfan86]

THIS is exactly how the Clippers offense should run every night. Through the bigs with our guards slashing all game and swinging the ball on the wing.

[Cracka2HI!]

THIS is exactly how the Clippers offense should run every night. Through the bigs with our guards slashing all game and swinging the ball on the wing.

I didn't see the game, but this could also be another reason Blake #'s are down. The team wins by 35 and Blake score 14. Not saying we are killing teams every night, we are not. However it seems the team plays best when everyone is scoring. Team had 7 players in double figures and that's without Chauncey doing it!

[Chronz]

that not the correct spelling?

Dont know what that means

[Chronz]

I didn't see the game, but this could also be another reason Blake #'s are down. The team wins by 35 and Blake score 14. Not saying we are killing teams every night, we are not. However it seems the team plays best when everyone is scoring. Team had 7 players in double figures and that's without Chauncey doing it!

No. Thats not how stats work, its not about raw accumulation.

[b@llhog24]

Dont know what that means

He wants you to be more concise. "Dumb it down" if you will.

[Chronz]

THIS is exactly how the Clippers offense should run every night. Through the bigs with our guards slashing all game and swinging the ball on the wing.

I honestly have no idea what your talking about. This is because I dont see what you were complaining about before, you never responded to my lengthy questions and your not saying much now. To me this is exactly how we were playing during the winning streak that you said was unsustainable. Odom showing up made it alot more convincing of a victory


Anyways, what do you mean run through the bigs? Like do you mean giving them the ball and having them dictate things because your not watching the same basketball I am. Odom did that with his assist total but that cant be what you mean by our bigs because you couldn't possibly expect that from Odom on a game to game basis, certainly not this early.

Our bigs went 3/10 in the post, which was mostly DJ but I was fine with all of those touches. In fact maybe alil more from Blake but my point is it wasnt why we blew them out.

The majority of our spot-up 3's were created by guard play. Even Odom was playing like a guard.

What about Isolation sets? Blake went 3-6, all 3 makes were on jumpshots. The aspect of his game you were complaining he should stop focusing on. So which is it. Do you want him to keep shooting jumpers or do you like the way he played last night? Because his ratio was like 4 post up fga (not sure of the touches right now) and 6 iso moves. 4 of those 6 isolations were jumpers he connected on 2. The other 2 were drives to the rim where he probably got fouled but didn't get the call on 1.

To me thats like a 50/50 split of jumpers and paint forays/postups. Hes been mixing it up like this all year, the results have been inconsistent, which is why your so up and down on this team.

[Cracka2HI!]

No. Thats not how stats work, its not about raw accumulation.

I understand that, I was only talking about stats like PPG and RPG. I was responding to CF86, not you LOL! A lot of times the team doesn't need him to score. It's funny what winning a couple games does to the psyche of a fan. In Blake case I think it's easy to ignore the stats/facts and just look at how he looks playing basketball. As long as we are winning...

[Chronz]

He wants you to be more concise. "Dumb it down" if you will.

Conversation got bogged down by vague viewpoints and false statements. Clearing out the lies and/or misconceptions takes more words. They arent meant for anyone but the person Im debating with.

I give the cliff notes version afterwards. With a small post that follows it.