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31	Januar 2018

This Blake Griffin trade might be a trap for super-mediocrity

Blake Griffin is an exquisitely skilled player in his prime. When you read that the Clippers traded him for a lightly protected first-round pick and a younger power forward they might have some interest in re-signing in July 2019, your reaction was probably: that's it? That's all they get for Blake freaking Griffin?And if the Clippers don't re-sign Tobias Harris in two summers, then they flipped Griffin -- the greatest homegrown player in the franchise's (mostly pathetic) modern history -- for one first-round pick and one second-rounder.

But right now, this is probably the very best deal the Clippers could have gotten for Griffin. He is in the first year of an absolutely ginormous five-year contract that will http://www.authenticflyersite.com/michael-del-zotto-jersey_c-448.html pay him about $35 million per season -- and almost $39 million in in 2020-21. He has a scary injury history. The Pistons could end up paying Griffin and Andre Drummond almost $70 million combined that season. Considering they have literally zero bankable long-term talent around them, and fewer avenues to find any after this trade, that scenario doesn't seem great.The Clippers saw their own version of that hard ceiling, and bailed out -- kicking off a potential rebuild that could go in a bunch of different directions.

The Pistons got the best player in this trade. Griffin has played his entire NBA career with a Drummond-esque rim-running http://www.officialastroshop.com/Nolan_Ryan_Jersey center, only Drummond is a way better passer (and worse defender) than DeAndre Jordan. They can fit. But Detroit risks paying a ton of money to mimic the Chris Paul-Griffin-Jordan triptych, only with Reggie Jackson in the role of Chris Paul. Gulp. There is more to this for Detroit -- we'll get there -- but it is almost impossible to see any path to anything above a kind of super-mediocrity topping out around 50 wins.
And it's important to remember: Jason Hammel Youth jersey maybe super-mediocrity, with multiple playoff appearances in the middle of the East, is OK for the Pistons. They have obviously considered that endgame. They are struggling to fill a new arena, at risk of missing the playoffs for a second straight season. Being the Joe Johnson-era Hawks might be a great outcome for them.
For the Clippers, it's tempting to compare this deal to the trades for Paul George and Jimmy Butler over the summer. The Bulls got more for Butler, and that was clear at the time, before Kris Dunn blossomed and Lauri Markkanen started cramming all over fools. The Pacers probably got more for George on an expiring Shaquil Barrett Authentic Jersey contract, though no one -- not even the Pacers -- knew it then. Butler and George are barely younger than Griffin, who turns 29 in March. So the Clippers sold low on Griffin, right?Not really. That contract is locked in. A lot of Griffin's injuries have been flukes, but flukes add up as a player ages. Recurring knee issues preceded some of those flukes. Griffin's athleticism has already declined some.
Griffin is a power forward who can't protect the rim, and only began really shooting 3s this season. Without that 3-pointer, he's an antique in the modern NBA -- a casualty http://www.giantsfootballofficialonline.com/YOUTH+PHIL+MCCONKEY+JERSEY of math. George and Butler are multi-positional wings who can shoot, pass, and defend at a high level. They are the modern NBA. The Griffin trade almost reminds less of those deals, and more of Atlanta foisting Joe Johnson's albatross on the Nets http://www.authenticbruinsstore.com/loui-eriksson-jersey_c-432.html in return for draft assets (and a bunch of players the Hawks didn't care about).
That's not fair to Griffin. He's better now than Johnson was then, and almost three years younger. But the downside risk for Detroit is similar to what happened with Johnson in Brooklyn.There just wasn't a lot of demand for Griffin, according to sources around the league. Some good teams with big dreams were turned off by his contact. Most good teams are already too expensive to absorb it without sending out their best or second-best players.
The half-dozen or so worst teams are so far away from contention that flipping their best picks and young players for an almost 29-year-old doesn't make any sense. The Lakers loom as a possible exception, only because they have clear and immediate free agency ambitions. We all know they need cap space to sign two max-level free agents, and Griffin would obviously cannibalize that. But there has long been another avenue: get one star in the door now, and use him as bait for the second.
The Lakers Noah Vonleh Youth jersey even have Brook Lopez's $22 million expiring contract to help match salaries. But they don't appear to have taken a serious look at Griffin, per league sources. Maybe it wouldn't have been workable; the Lakers already traded their 2018 first-round pick.
The veteran max contract, worth 35 percent of the salary cap, is one of the trickiest pieces to move -- and one of the most potentially damaging contract types in the league. It is a massive commitment that takes players beyond their primes. The Bulls and Kings traded Butler and DeMarcus Cousins to avoid dealing with it. We all celebrated when the Wizards inked John Wall to a deal that will start at that level in 2019-20. How will we feel when Wall be making $44 million in 2021-22 -- when he's going on 32?It took a franchise like Detroit: middling, desperate to win, desperate for relevance, content with being a pretty good playoff team as long as Griffin and Drummond stay together.
The Clippers could have gotten more for Griffin at times before last season, but teams rarely get to control the timing of superstar trades. Griffin's trade value probably crested in the 2015-16 season, when he still had that year and one more on his prior contract. The Clippers spent a lot of that season winning without him, as they usually did provided Paul and Jordan were also healthy, and thought about trading him then.
But he spent most of that year, including the months before and after the trade deadline, injured after punching a Clippers staffer. Before that John Matuszak Womens Jersey season, the Clippers were too good to consider trading him. After it, he became an expiring contract, deflating his trade value. Now, he's on a mega-deal. The Clippers decided not to risk the possibility that general decline or another injury eroded his value going forward. cheap nfl jerseys usa wholesale jerseys all cheap nhl jerseys cheap nfl jerseys wholesale cheap jerseys elite cheap nfl jerseys nike mlb jerseys usa nba jerseys for sale