With his physical gifts there is no excuse for how bad Blake Griffin is at defense. NO excuse. He should be the kind of defensive presence Dwight is, he has that kind of physical talent. Where are the blocked shots? Where is the intimidation around the rim? Why is he only a good rebounder instead of an elite one? Yes he is only 24, but he has started every game the last 3 seasons at around 36 minutes per game. He has plenty of experience, he should be playing better. I don't care about his offensive game, it is good enough with CP3 to set him up for decent buckets. He needs to start acting like he cares about the other end of the court. The Clippers won't win anything unless/until that happens.
Jesus the lack of knowledge in here is so bad that I have to correct it somehow. 1. OP looks like a complete idiot right now considering the very next game CP3 had the best game of his career and followed that one up with a 26/10/5 game. I get it you're pissed CP3 didn't even consider the Rockets but keep it real. 2. Blake Griffin is a career 20.5/10.5/3.5 player without outstanding efficiency and rapidly improving defense. Not even Barkley or Malone had as good of a 3 year shot. Speaking of Malone as Shaq said yesterday "Malone didnt become mailman untjl his 5th or 6th year". Blake has played just 3 seasons and is a 3 time all star and two time All NBA 2nd team selection for a reason. 3. Don't throw up idiotic comparisons like Griffin vs Jefferson and exclude the fact that Griffin is FAR more efficient and played less minutes, taking less shots last year. Adjust for minutes and it's a laughably bad comparison. 4. Bottom line in sports is you get the job done. A pretty post game doesnt mean a good post game. In Blake's three years he's finished 2nd, 1st and 3rd in points in the paint per game. Ill take that any day over an inefficient chucker with pretty moves like Jefferson or Zbo.
Typo... With out standing efficiency I meant. Blake went from terrible defender to average or slightly above average last year. This year he looks even sharper. I don't expect most Rockets fans to recognize defense because Harden who's played an extra year is still an atrovious defender, not much worse than Kevin Martin.
This post can be described in one word. Dumb. How is he as gifted as Dwight who's a lot bigger and has the 4th or 5th best standing reach and wingspan in the NBA? Blake's wingspan is 6'10, Dwight's is like 7'4 plus. Short armed bigs are never elite shotblockers.
I followed and agreed with most of your argument until you decided to take potshots against the franchise player of the team's message board. Try again
Funny thing is, Harden's defensive improvements are far and away more than Griffin's, lol The problem with Griffin is his limited offense causes his game to fall off a cliff in the playoffs because teams start to take things away from you, things they don't to show you in the regular season. Griffin relies on scoring near the basket, but he's short for his position, with short arms, and he's not particularly strong, so he can't exactly power over people, and if they cover his athleticism, there's issues (Zbo is Memphis' worst defender by a significant margin too). The problem that creates is that it ends up with CP3 having to either shape himself as his team's primary scorer or watch Blake put up a lot of low efficiency scoring, and Blake's inability to provide for the team in any other elite ways only adds to the rot. As for the OP, i have no idea where that comes from, everyone is in the "holy ****, that Lebron guy is awesome" boat, but there's no real weakness in CP3's game that makes him tangibly weaker in the beat Miami game.
Well, the JLin7 vs CP3 show will be on soon. We will have a close look at whether they could win a ring or only Fisher, Kerr and Ron Harper could. Would be an interesting matchup!
I don't have a lot of faith in Lin's ability so slow down CP3's madness, particularly with us in a 4 in 5 and them coming off an extra day rest.
Actually Harden's defensive rating (lower is better) has gone from 108 to 105 to 106 while Blake's has gone from 107 to 104 to 102, so your eyes have deceived you. And Blake was a high efficiency scorer before Paul and has done fine in games Paul has missed. He has not played well against Memphis but one series was his debut and the second he was injured for most of it. Also, Memphis was probably the best post defensive team in the league the last two years. It is trendy to hate on Blake because he is flashy but try to use some analytics to back up your commentary.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/griffbl01.html 102 to 110 vs http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hardeja01.html 106 to 99 Not that I think it's a particularly good measurement though His abysmal playoff performances have pretty good example of where it all goes wrong in the playoffs. Also whilst Marc is good, their post defense isn't anywhere near as good as their perimeter defense, especially when you're the PF and not the C (Conley and Allen vs Zbo, and it's much easier for Marc to help vs perimeter than another interior player). The problem is he's just nowhere near as good as you think he is.
Obviously I'm excluding the three games from this season, or else we could also say CP3 is the best player ever. We need a bit more data.
His playoff performances haven't been abysmal by any stretch. He has a playoff PER of 19.5 and was injured for half of the games last year. And the three series the Clippers played were all against elite interior defenses which make every post player struggle. I don't think Griffin is a top tier player but he is a very good one, and his numbers back that up. I expect him to do 20/10/4 on 55% in this system which is as good as any big in the league.
Maybe Worthy, but I have to disagree with Kareem who was probably at his best in Milwaukee and early Laker days. Again as I said in a thread earlier, this year, you almost cannot compare Magic and to an extent Oscar Robertson to other point guards, because they are more freak of nature players (like LeBron James or Kevin Garnett) vs. prototypical .... I'd say Stockton, KJ, Nash, or Frazier. Comparing a 6,9 player to a 6,2-6,3 player is not fair at all ... especially when 6,9 players in general can play 2-5 positions, if talented enough. I somewhat disagree with assertion of CP3, his BB IQ is off the charts, and while he's not nearly as talented as Magic. He's a much greater shooter, more versatile scorer, and defender than Magic. As great as Magic was, I doubt he would've won any titles playing for New Orleans Hornets or Jazz, if that were case, unless he had talented teammates, like Karl Malone and Stockton come on the scene.
I think Blake Griffin will project to be what Amare Stoudamire was at Phoenix. Blake Griffin http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/griffbl01.html Amare Stoudamire http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/stoudam01.html Both are very similar across most stats. Think the biggest difference is Blake's weakness at the free throw line. .611 FT% compared to .758FT% In comparison Karl Malone at Utah. This is what Clippers fans should hope Blake developes into. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/malonka01.html Biggest difference here is still the Free Throw .742FT%
In 3 out of 5 playoff runs CP3 has had better efficiency than Lebron. In fact career wise, statistically CP3 is a top 10 all time playoff performer. Only Magic Johnson can challenge his playoff numbers from the PG spot. Chris Paul has never lost a playoff series to a worse team or lower seed until last year. Even then Memphis had the same record as us and was a great team, nevermind 2nd year in a row we had injury issues and Vinny to overcome.
Sorry but it's frustrating watching people rant about something so inaccurate. I'm not taking a shot when I say Harden truly is a bad defender. It's pretty much his only weakness. Still a top 7 player and a beast.
I know you aren't insulting, just giving your opinion.. but outside of athleticism Amare and Blake are nothing alike. One is was a face up player, one is a low post banger. Blake predominantly lives in the paint, Amare lives 15-17 feet from the basket and goes inside after blowing by people. Gentry is working hard with Blake on face up this year which may make the comparison more accurate in the future. Although Blake is a MUCH better rebounder, passer and more efficient. Blake skillset wise is most a 2nd or 3rd year Charles Barkley right now. Efficient scoring player in the paint, outstanding passer and ballhandler at PF, supremely athletic, great rebounder, average defender.
I suggest that before making such an idiotic statement, you actually look at their stats. In the past few years, Griffin hasn't added much to his game. Any improvement has been marginal. One of his biggest weaknesses has been his free throw shooting. It's gone from 64% to 52% to 66%. Disappointing. On the other hand, in Malone's first 3 seasons, his ft shooting went from 48% to 60% to 70%. It's a bit premature to mention Griffin's name with the likes of Barkley and Malone. If anything, it's an insult to Al Jefferson. You have to realize that being the centerpiece of an offense will generally lower your efficiency b/c of the increased defensive attention. If you want to rely solely on the numbers, then do you also think the Knicks should be running their offense through Tyson Chandler instead of Carmelo Anthony? The fact is, Al Jefferson's offensive repertoire is much better suited to being the centerpiece of an offense than Blake Griffin's. So you'd take Tyson Chandler's offense over Hakeem Olajuwon's?
Seriously? If Amare Stoudemire didn't have a mid-range jumper, he'd be Blake Griffin. That's how similar their offensive games are. Blake Griffin lives in the paint b/c he's useless anywhere else. He's tried developing a mid-range jumper, but he's not there yet.
