If Blake continues his play as of late he'll be in MVP talks

[Neddy]

7-4>5-6 they take into account wins too

was about to post this... well done! winning always counts more.

[Quake Griffin]

we don't give our own POTM's their own thread each time now?

smh.
hell no Love shouldn't have got this award.


what is this #2 for Griff this year?

[Quake Griffin]

Just watching the Thunder struggle down the stretch and LeBron suck after the 61.


I think a BIG GAME against Golden State could go a long way towards getting our boy a few 1st place votes.

[mike3]

Doing us proud Griff.

I love seeing him play like he SHOULD.

Rebounding numbers still need to improve (always finding the things to improve.)

[Ranma]

Eric Patten, Clippers.com (3/12/14)

On Monday night, Griffin became just the third player in NBA history to tally 6,000 points, 3,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists before the end of his fourth season while shooting 50.0 percent or better. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Charles Barkley, Blake Griffin and that’s it.
...

“I played against Kareem and Charles and they are completely different [than Griffin],” Clippers head coach Doc Rivers said. “If three guys could be more different those three… there is not anything that is similar about any of them. Which is amazing and it’s another lesson that you can get things and do things similar in different ways.”
...

“I think [Griffin’s] game has stepped up in terms of his consistency in his shooting,” Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek said. “His ability to go up and down the court and not just catch lob dunks. That’s what great players do. They improve their game and that’s what allows these guys to get to the next level.”

Griffin Joins Barkley & Abdul-Jabbar with Rare Milestone

[mkwest]

I know this doesn't have anything to do with anything, but it's kind of cool how their numbers 34-33-32.

[Ranma]

Kirk Goldsberry, Grantland (3/7/14)

Away from the basket on offense, Griffin has never been great, but this isn’t unusual in young power forwards. The key questions with him involve trajectories: Is he getting better? Is he diversifying his scoring portfolio? The answers there are definitely “yes” and “yes.” His rookie season, Griffin made only 33 percent of his midrange jumpers. That’s bad; as a whole, the league makes 39 percent of these shots. However, his second season that number rose to 36 percent, and this year he’s at 39 percent. In four seasons, Griffin has gone from a bad jump-shooter to an average one. In fact, he is outshooting LeBron James in the 16-to-24-foot range this season; how come nobody says James can’t shoot?

During the early part of his career, Griffin’s favorite shot away from the basket was in the baseline area, near the left block. That’s no longer the case. In Doc Rivers’s system, Griffin posts up a lot less and faces up a lot more. His new preferred locations are near the elbows, and he takes those baseline jumpers much less frequently. It’s a sign that Rivers is using Griffin in vastly different ways than Vinny Del Negro did.


...



Five years after his last game in Norman, Blake Griffin has become the most prolific interior scorer in the league. Sure, he still may only be an “average” jump-shooter, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the road that connects bad to good almost always has to pass through “average” along the way. That’s where Griffin’s jumper is right now. There’s still room for improvement, but for a 24-year-old power forward who can still jump out of the gym and dominate the restricted area, an average jumper is good enough for now.

Better Sooner: How Blake Griffin Became the Most Prolific Interior Scorer in the NBA

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/clippersteve/status/443990836536041472[/tweet]

Rob Mahoney, Sports Illustrated (3/11/14)

A month ago, Griffin was decked by a shove from Heat center Greg Oden that could very well have ended more disastrously than it did. On Monday, Griffin drew the attention of Suns forward P.J. Tucker, who took a swipe at Griffin after the two got locked up while maneuvering for rebounding position:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7z7WLR5Qzk[/youtube]

No other player is hit and clubbed and suplexed so often in ways utterly without basketball justification, in part because dealing with Griffin on a play-by-play basis is one of the NBA’s utmost frustrations.

He dunks. He preens. He baits contact and sneaks in pushes and holds of his own.

And, as is becoming increasingly clear: He can’t really be stopped.

The Fundamentals: The Frustratingly Good Blake Griffin

[Ranma]

Scott Rafferty, Hardwood Paroxysm (3/13/14)

With an average of 24.4 points per game, Griffin finds himself as the sixth leading scorer in the Association. He has a much improved mid-range jumper, as well as a variety of simple, yet effective, post-moves, which have all helped him elevate his game to the next level. But what’s just as impressive as his pick-and-pops and jump-hooks is the work he does in the open-court, because he is virtually unstoppable when he gets a full head of steam.

...that just speaks volumes of how we are numb to what Griffin does on a basketball court now. It’s not often that you see a 6-foot-10, 251-pound power forward get a rebound, beat everyone down the court and score a basket within five seconds of a new shot-clock, which is why it’s so effective – defenses aren’t used to stopping that play. When someone like Griffin does that, it creates an instant mismatch. Guards are usually the first to get back on the defensive end, and having to pick up a power forward or center is never going to end well for them. He also does it several times a game, which is just a headache to keep up with.

Like A Blur: Blake Griffin Is A One Man Wrecking Crew In Transition

[Ranma]

Highly recommended reading of a personal discovery. I don't think DC is thrilled with Doc's description of him as not being a true point guard or great decision-maker.

Paul Flannery, SB Nation (3/16/14)

It’s not just the scoring. When Rivers took over he remembered a conversation with Tony Brown, one of his coaching buddies who worked with Griffin during his rookie season while Griffin was recovering from knee surgery.

"Tony just kept talking about his passing," Rivers said. "It was really interesting because he hadn’t played a game but Tony had done a lot of drill stuff with him and Tony said, ‘Man this kid can be a Bill Walton type passer. I’m telling you, they’ll use him as a scorer but he can be a great passer.’"

When Paul missed 18 games with a separated shoulder, the Clippers went 12-6 and Griffin averaged 27.2 points, 8.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists. Far more than the numbers suggest, the Clippers turned Griffin into something like a point forward.

"The thing we started doing more is the advance pass to Blake," Rivers said. "When Chris went out, my concern was Darren (Collison’s) not a point. He’s more of just a guard and not a great decision maker. I was concerned about our decision making so we started outletting it to Blake. When Chris went down we basically told Blake he had to be a facilitator and a scorer. We kind of fell into the fast break stuff with Blake bringing it up. Now with Chris back that makes us really lethal."

When Paul returned he blended seamlessly back into the mix and the Clippers really took off, winning 10 straight games and looking as legit as any of the other contenders in the Western Conference. When healthy, the Paul-Griffin combo is as good as any two-man pairing in the league.

What Blake Griffin Is and Is Not

[mttwlsn16]

Blake just won another west player of the week
Al jefferson won it in the east

Sent from my SCH-I545 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[mkwest]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/LAClippers/status/445636319897600000[/tweet]

[Ranma]

Arash Markazi, ESPN Los Angeles (3/17/14)

“When I was out Doc talked to me about kicking the ball ahead and it’s been fun,” Paul said. “Kicking the ball ahead to Blake and letting Blake push it and make plays. It’s not always about the assist. Doc said something about the hockey assist -- the pass that leads to the next pass and that’s when I think when our team is at its best.”

Paul said his relationship with Griffin grew during his time away from the court. He realized how much he needed him to succeed and vice versa. This wasn’t Paul’s team or Griffin’s team anymore. It had to be their team if they wanted to do anything worthwhile in the postseason.

“I think it takes some pressure off of Chris,” Rivers said. “You don’t want Chris having the ball on every possession all game. I don’t know how you can physically go through a game, a year and definitely through the playoffs like that. I just think it’s really important that there’s more than one facilitator on your team.”

The evolution of Blake Griffin

[mkwest]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/clippstvsmith/status/445686363791167489[/tweet]

Heart of a Flyin' Lion

The answer may be that Griffin has emerged from a cocoon these recent months without the star point guard. All the freedom and inspiration Griffin displayed his rookie year seems to have metamorphosed before Paul’s very eyes. And the clearest approval the point god could stamp on Blake is allowing him to fly. Griffin’s career-high usage rate of 29.6 in Paul’s absence has declined only 0.5 in the 15 games since CP’s return, a result of the now-commonplace sight of the power forward coordinating the fast break. Blake pushes the pace, and if nothing materializes, the ball goes back to Paul to execute effective and efficient half-court sets. Despite the Lob City moniker and flashy pyrotechnics, these Clippers had never been an up-tempo team. Chris Paul is a basketball pace car. He doesn’t have an internal clock so much as a metronome. But Griffin’s recent elevation has married the natural high-end speed of the team with Paul’s low-end torque.

And the results have been dramatic. Los Angeles has been blowing by the competition since the tandem reunited, with 112.4 points per 100 possessions, while yielding only 97.8 points. Extrapolated over the season, that would give the Clippers the best offense in the league and third-best defense.

In nine seasons, Paul has always been the best player on his team. Griffin remained the final credit in player introductions when Paul arrived in Los Angeles three seasons ago, but these courtesies rang hollow. The team belonged to CP3. Paul would lead, Griffin would follow. And Griffin was forced to make adjustments much faster than expectations should have dictated. How often is the burden of title contention put upon a player still on his rookie contract?

But in the 18 games Paul has missed, Griffin has assumed the mantle of a contender, filling Paul’s annual seat in the “third-best player in the league” conversation. And Griffin has afforded the point guard the opportunity to analyze himself for possibly the first time since his knee injury in 2010. What can Paul do to validate the strides the team has made in his absence? The topic doesn’t revolve around what’s been accomplished or what the expectations are; it’s about getting better, a Griffin ethos.

Andrew Han, ESPN

[mkwest]

Clippers forward Blake Griffin modeling non-stop work ethic

“I’ve heard millions of Kobe (Bryant) stories about late-night workouts,” said Griffin, whose team takes on Detroit on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Staples Center. “One I heard, one time I guess he was in Italy and called Marco Belinelli (of the Spurs) at like 1, 2 o’clock in the morning and asked him if he had a gym for him, and so Marco found him one and he went there to shoot with him.

“And he (Belinelli) was like, ‘I thought we were going to just get some shots up, but we had like a full workout.’ Things like that. That’s work ethic, real worth ethic. It’s not just coming in when you have to and going hard. It’s doing extra, going above and beyond.”

Griffin hangs his hat on that credo.

“A guy like LeBron, he’s doing so many things for his team,” Griffin, 25, said of the Miami Heat star. “He makes shots, but he also makes plays, makes good decisions, he gets stops, he does everything. That’s kind of a goal, to be a playmaker who can affect the game in a lot of different ways.”

Robert Morales, Daily News

[mkwest]

Why is Blake Griffin so much better now?

Griffin’s ability to read situations and make the smart play has never been more apparent as he continues to develop a guard’s feel for the game. Griffin ranks second among non-guards in secondary assists (a stat that gauges a player’s ability to see a play develop two passes ahead). He ranks fifth among non-guards in points created by assist per game at 8.7 points per game.

To put in perspective of how much of a smarter and more willing passer Griffin has become, he averages only 0.2 passes less than Kyrie Irving per game and only slightly trails Irving in assists-turnovers per game. Not only does Griffin’s passing ability show his increased basketball IQ, but also his increased knowledge and ability to move without the ball. With Griffin on the move cutting to the basket, he is finishing at a rate of 1.22 points per possession. Not only does his ability to move without the ball make him harder to defend, but it also creates open looks for threes for his teammates.

When Clipper team leader Chris Paul went down for 19 games, most thought it would expose Griffin’s perceived ‘lack of a post game.’ Instead, just the opposite happened. Instead of averaging his normal 3.9 post-up shot attempts per game, Griffin averaged slightly under 6 per game. Griffin shot 48 percent from the block during that stretch ranking him in the top 82 percent of the NBA. That puts him ahead of low-post aficionados Al Jefferson and Kevin Love.

David Nurse, HoospHype

[mkwest]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2xb_YkDU3o[/youtube]

[Ranma]

Saw this in the margins of the Matt Barnes article:

Jonathan Abrams, Grantland (4/9/14)

Doc Rivers: “He’s a lot more, if I could say it in one word, everything. Almost every area.”

DeAndre Jordan: “Now, he’s more vocal out there. I feel like when Chris went down [in January], Blake had to step it up even more offensively and defensively for our team to be successful.”

J.J. Redick: “He’s constantly trying to get better. With his level of natural talent, he’s going to be one of the all-time greats.”

Ryan Hollins: “We’re not just playing and he’s getting numbers. We’re winning and he’s a huge part of it, especially when Chris was out. You maybe could not have said that about him before.”

The New Blake Griffin, in the Words of the Clippers

[Neddy]

as i have said for years, you can't have a 6-0 (questionable at that as well) PG be the best player on your team and expect to win it all. the only guy I can think of in the entire history of NBA to do just that is Isiah Thomas with the pistons and even that team still had Laimbeer, Rodman, Dumars, the Microwave, Buddah, and the Spider in their prime.

typically, you need a dominant big man then a great PG. Bill Russell and Bob Cousey, Kareem and Magic, Jerry Lucas/Willis Reed and Earl the Pearl, Hakeem and Kenny the Jet/Sam I Am Cassell, and although they didn't win it all, Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton, and John Stockton and Karl Malone.

Blake needs to be the guy, and he has been morphing into that guy slowly. but for us to win it all this year, he needs to transcendent the former shell and become one of the best right now.