from Bleacher Report

Flop City. Flop Flop City. The ringing taunt grew louder and louder as the Clippers turned heel over the course of one season. “Lob City” was how the Clips were sold, “Flop City” was how they came to be loathed.

Blake Griffin suffered a dramatic drop in approval rating, due to his acting tendencies. It was not unusual to see Blake drive, fall and roll around as though electrocuted by swarming, invisible eels. People grew tired of the flopping and it seeped into the assessment of Griffin. Whispers of “overrated” and “regressing” abounded, despite consistently fine play.

Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN put it like this:

Griffin’s first season was one of pure affection, but the only thing we enjoy more than falling in love with a star is falling out of love with him. Last season, fans wallpapered the Internet with his highlights, but lately Griffin is being seen through a different lens. We still get breathless whenever he gets loose above the rim, but that anticipation brings with it the growing feeling that what was deemed basketball perfection less than a year ago has evolved into something else.

I’m not sure what the expectations were for Blake Griffin, because I did not share in the collective disappointment. Blake is not far away from being a top-five player, and he did show progress toward such an eventuality.
Continue reading »

from LA Times

Clippers forward Blake Griffin has worked with shooting coach Bob Thate to eliminate a hitch before he releases ball. But it was still there in preseason opener.

The hitch is not in Blake Griffin’s giddy-up, but in his shooting motion.

Just as the Clippers’ star forward is about to release the ball, he pauses, a hiccup he has tried to stop by working with the team’s new shooting coach, Bob Thate.

During warmups before the Clippers’ 106-104 exhibition loss against Denver on Saturday night in Las Vegas, Griffin’s shooting release looked smoother than before.

But during the game, the holdup in his release reappeared when Griffin went to the free-throw line, where he shot 52% last season. He missed his first four attempts, each hitting the back of the rim.

After his first game-type situation with his tinkered shooting release, Griffin, who made his final two free-throw attempts, was upbeat.

“I was somewhat OK with it because I was missing long,” said Griffin, who scored six points and grabbed seven rebounds in 22 minutes “I don’t want to miss short. Missing short is bad for me, missing long is OK.

“But as far as the first-game speed and all that, I think it was OK. I think I’ll be much better. I’ve just got to keep working. I haven’t made it by any means.”

From Bleacher Report

As a rookie, Blake Griffin captured the imaginations and computer screens of NBA fans across the globe with his breathtaking athleticism and vicious viral slams.

Projections for Griffin’s second season were wildly optimistic. He had a chance to become the best power forward in the NBA.

But after a season in which it seemed like he didn’t make any improvements to his game, and according to some maybe even took a small step back, Blake had to face some backlash against his breakout stardom.

Though he still racked up double-doubles on a near nightly basis, Griffin gained a reputation for being a whiner and a flopper. That story began to overshadow his impressive skills on the court.

There are some great elements to Griffin’s game that are now trendy to dismiss, while there are also flaws that people are correct to point out.

Let’s take a look at five pros and five cons of Blake Griffin as a basketball player, beginning with the bad news first.

Click HERE to view the slideshow

from Bleacher Report

The Los Angeles Clippers can extend Blake Griffin’s contract this offseason, and they must get it done as soon as possible. According to Ramona Shelburne of ESPN Los Angeles, team president Andy Roeser is confident that the superstar forward will sign a long-term deal to remain with the club, despite the disappointing end to the team’s first playoff run since 2006.

After being swept by the San Antonio Spurs, ESPN Los Angeles asked Roeser about locking up new contracts for Chris Paul and Griffin:

I feel those things are going to get done…The important thing is that we have to do other things to improve the team. But I believe we’ll do those things and ultimately I believe those two players (Griffin and Paul) are going to play out their careers here.
Continue reading »

from Bleacher report

s of Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Clippers were sitting pretty as they held a 3-1 advantage in their first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies.

However, after dropping Game 5, things suddenly aren’t so cozy. To make matters worse, the Clippers’ two star players, Blake Griffin and Chris Paul, missed time in the fourth quarter with injuries.

Update: Thursday, May 10 at 8:40 p.m. ET by Tim Keeney

The Clippers have announced (via Royce Young of cbssports.com) Blake Griffin—along with Chris Paul—is a game-time decision for Game 6, but head coach Vinny Del Negro thinks they’ll be OK.

“We had to get Chris out of there in the end — he was hobbling a little bit,” he said. “I expect them both to be fine. They were both able to go back in the game. They are going to be sore and injured and they are going to have to fight through it as best they can.”

Sounds to me like Del Negro is willing to put his stars out there no matter what, but after being forced to sit Paul in crunch time during Game 5, we’ll simply have to wait for real confirmation from Los Angeles.

From Bleacher Report

Blake Griffin has garnered a new reputation around the NBA this season, and it’s not exactly one he should be hoping to keep throughout the course of his career.

Some have referred to him as a flopper; others have called him an actor; and it’s becoming increasingly clear that his theatrics on the court have become a consistent part of his game.

It’s not a good look for such a phenomenally talented young player.

Griffin isn’t a superstar, but he is a star. His incredible athleticism allows him to make plays that the majority of his peers simply can’t fathom, and his arrival has rejuvenated the “other” Los Angeles franchise.

However, if Griffin has his sights set on turning the Clippers into a legitimate title contender or ever blossoming into an even better player, the whining has got to step.
Continue reading »

from – ESPN LA

As job requirements go, the NBA’s mandate that each of its players must be made available to the media once a day is a fairly mild one. It is a chore and mostly mindless; the questions are usually more like prompts to elicit sound bites. But over time, most players learn to embrace and accept it.

But on this day, Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin looked especially uncomfortable. The crowd for this Friday morning practice was bigger than normal because the Clippers had just returned home from an awful road trip to Atlanta and New York, where they blew home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Griffin has never cared much for these scrums. He’s far deeper and wittier than most people realize, but his insights and personality don’t come across well in a forced setting like this. Like most good counterpunchers, and a lot like his best finishes on the basketball court, he needs a good setup to play off of.
Continue reading »

from msnbc.msn.com

The bond began with blood and was forged with bumps and bruises.

In Winston-Salem, N.C., a backyard basketball court served as a battleground for a boy and his younger brother. Halfway across the country, in Oklahoma City, two different brothers fought for every inch on a slanted driveway with a stenciled-on free-throw lane.

After years of fighting, scratching, crying and even some biting, greatness emerged.

On these household courts, C.J. Paul made Chris Paul, and Taylor Griffin made Blake Griffin.

“Had my brother not gone before me,” Chris Paul said. “I wouldn’t be where I am.”

Both C.J. Paul and Taylor Griffin were very good basketball players, and both set examples and provided competition that turned their little brothers into two of the biggest stars in the NBA.

“Whether he knew it or not, I was watching,” Blake Griffin said. “I was taking notes.”

The lessons and the battles, directly and indirectly, have helped the Clippers get back into the playoffs for the first time since 2006. And while Blake and Chris star on the court, C.J. and Taylor can take satisfaction knowing they played a critical part in their brothers’ successes.
Continue reading »

from Bleacher Report (click this link to view the associated videos)

TNT analyst Charles Barkley hasn’t been much of a force in terms of dunking on poor saps in about 20 years. That’s nothing against Chuck. He was an MVP-level player in a couple of seasons after his development as an all-around scorer, and he ably played in the NBA until the 1999-00 season, but his time spent as a Blake Griffin-type ended about two decades ago. His body, based on the type of physical abuse the typical rim-basher puts up with, is probably thanking him for developing that jump shot and that low post footwork.

Blake Griffin is still dunking away without much of a post game to show for it, and though he’s led his Los Angeles Clippers to the playoffs this season, he’s still a bit miffed that he seems to get hit harder than the average bear on his way towards the rim — like when Phoenix’s Robin Lopez tackled his way through Griffin on Thursday night. This might partially be a function of jealousy, or resentment at the league-wide posters Griffin tends to create, but it’s mostly a function (as we pointed out earlier this week) of the fact that Griffin makes just over half of his free-throw attempts. Why get dunked on, opponents think, when you can wrap the guy up and watch as he typically splits a pair?

Griffin is “sick” of the hard fouls, and Barkley appears to be pretty sick of watching Blake get tossed around without much retribution from his Clipper teammates. Clipper teammates that, as you’ll see in a video after the jump, are a lovable bunch of goofballs that like to do the robot during practice.
Continue reading »

From FullClips.com

Los Angeles Clippers forward recently appeared on the Doug Gottlieb show and talked about his all-around game and some questions about the upcoming Olympics. When asked how he wants to evolve his game in the future Griffin responded he wanted to, “just keep working on my all-around game. You know, I’m trying to improve all around, you know in the post and stepping out and shooting jumpers. The biggest thing for me is to help my team win. And as long as we do that, all the other stuff will come in time.”

Griffin was also asked what his opinion was on Dwyane Wade’s recent suggestion that Olympic basketball players should be paid to offer their services; Griffin politely disagreed: “to be honest, I didn’t really hear the whole story about that. But for me personally, it’s an honor to be able to play for your country, so you know that in itself is plenty. But you know in some ways guys like him and some of the other guys are dedicating a lot of time, and they have dedicated a lot of time over the past 4, 5 summers, however long they’ve played. But you know, like I said, for me to be honest playing for your country and trying to win a gold is enough in itself.”
Continue reading »