Please critique my commentary

[jazzfan1971]

His production very damn well did regress, and that's exactly what I said happened.

That is a cold hard fact. And I seem to have to debate it.

[og15]

His production very damn well did regress, and that's exactly what I said happened.

That is a cold hard fact. And I seem to have to debate it.

You are partially right. His rebounding regressed, we weren't too happy about that. His scoring rate was lower but we didn't care because the plan isn't to have Blake score as much as possible in the regular season, it was to be an effective offense and that was accomplished.

His assist rate was up, steals, FT%, TS%, career high 114 Ortg, better defense. More like yearly fluctuation based on team makeup than a regression in everything but rebounding.

The other stuff like the reason for his low minutes and such though, you were just off with, but you don't watch the Clippers, but should have done a bit better research about it.

[jazzfan1971]

Fair enough.

[mkwest]

You want your analysis critiqued and people here have given you context as to what may be accurate or inaccurate.

Blake is not going to be producing as much if he's taking less shots and playing less minutes. His role is not even the same because the quality of teammates has improved. In his rookie season, Eric Gordon played 56 games, Baron Davis played 35 games, Mo played 22 after the trade and Kaman played 32 games. With Jordan, Foye, Gomes, Rasual Butler, Craig Smith, and a couple of rookies (Aminu and Bledsoe) to round off the roster, you better believe he's getting more opportunities. His playoff teammates are better quality and help improve his efficiency, but decrease his volume.

Rebounding is an area that any of us will tell you that he needs to get back to where he was. The team slightly improved from 22nd to 18th in total rebounding last season, but his rebounding rate dropped on both sides of the ball. Offensively, it's a little more understandable with him playing further away from the basket than he did in his first 2 seasons, plus Jordan is pretty good on the offensive glass. It's an area that he needs to re-commit to. There's no reason why he should be below 10/per36. He should be able to get 10 even if he only plays 32mpg.

Blowouts...like I said, you have to actually watch the games.

An article about the 2013 all-stars...

Like Paul, his stats are down, as he’s playing fewer minutes (31.9 per game after averaging 36.2 last season) because of the Clippers’ depth and because a lot of blowout victories means plenty of fourth-quarter rest. Still, Griffin is averaging 17.7 points, 8.4 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.5 steals, and he’s shooting 53.4 percent from the field. His per-minute stats are comparable to those in his two previous seasons.

Ben Golliver, Sports Illustrated

An article from december....

Get used to the nickname, corny or not. It’s not going anywhere, and neither is the Clippers’ bench. On paper, the Clippers looked like they would have the deepest team in the league before the season began. Fast-forward through the first quarter of the season and the Clippers not only have the best bench in the NBA, they’re blitzing teams while without Grant Hill, Chauncey Billups and a still-working-his-way-back-into-shape Lamar Odom. It’s a second unit that will only get deeper and stronger as the season progresses, which has to be a scary proposition for the rest of the league. The Clippers’ second unit not only preserves leads, it creates them, builds them and helps turn close games into blowouts. In fact, the Clippers' starters haven’t even needed to step onto the court in the fourth quarter five times this season, as Paul and Blake Griffin are playing career-low minutes in games and in the fourth quarter.

Arash Markazi, ESPN Los Angeles

For the season, the Clippers were:

3rd in double digit victories: 38 games
2nd in 15 point victories: 22 games
3rd in 20 point victories: 14 games
2nd in 25 point victories: 9 games

That's not even taking into consideration that the 3rd stringers (Hollins, Turiaf, Green, etc.) might relinquish a decent portion of the lead, which happened quite a bit. Instead of a 20+ point victory, we might have something closer to 13.

Chris Paul played 6.2mpg in the 4th quarter. He played 7.6mpg in 2011 (as a Hornet) and 7.9mpg in 2012.

Blake Griffin played 6.3mpg in the 4th quarter. He played 7.9mpg in 2011 as a rookie and 8.1 in 2012 as a sophomore.

Both players saw almost a drop of 2 minutes per game in 4th quarter playing time.

In the postseason, he averaged 26.3mpg because of injury. If you look at the game logs, you'll see that there was a huge drop-off in game 5. His minutes in game were low (~25) due to foul trouble. Zach Randolph played in less than 25 minutes himself for game 1.

"It's an unfortunate thing that happened yesterday," Del Negro said. "It's a freak accident that he came down on Lamar's foot and got a bad ankle sprain. He's got a lot of swelling in there but he got therapy all night and therapy all day and battled through it. He came out in limited minutes and was active, but as the game went on, it got worse and worse, and you could see him there in the third, he was struggling to move a little bit, and that's when I pulled the plug on that. It just didn't make sense. I really wanted to protect him and make sure he was all right, but I give him a lot of credit for being out there."

"I felt good enough at the beginning of the game today, but it got worse as time went on," Griffin said. "So hopefully with two days of rest and two days of treatment I will be ready."

Arash Markazi, ESPN Los Angeles

Most players that suffer a high ankle sprain sit out about 3 weeks in the regular season and even longer in some cases. He tried to tough it out, but it was a lost cause.

In the postseason, he's had some very tough match-ups (i.e. Duncan, Randolph, Gasol) and injuries (sprained knee in game 5 of memphis series in 2012; high ankle sprain between game 4 & 5 in 2013). It's been unfortunate for us. He's been OK, but we have expected him to produce more in the postseason. I personally hate going against Memphis because they are so physical. Blake gets mauled and the result is often either a double foul or no foul call period. If the team does happen to win the series, they're at risk of limping into the 2nd round like a wounded animal. I'd love to see this team get a more favorable match-up in the first round this season to see if Blake fares better against someone else.

There is a lot of criticisms about him and his game atm. Some of it is misguided, but some of it is also true. He knows what people are saying and I hope that he's working on improving some of his legit weaknesses in order to take the next step.

[jazzfan1971]

Another well thought out post.

I never meant to indicate that he's regressed as a player, only that his production has regressed. It's unusual for a 24 year old player with his resume to see his production regressing. More often franchise players are just starting to hit their stride in their mid 20s as they move into their prime years.

So, some of the problem is that we're defining production differently. It's a difference at least in part of semantics.

The other part of course is the context. Of which I've been taken to task on.

I think Griffin is going to have an up year this year and the Clippers are gonna be great, perhaps even winning the West this time around. (assuming health and some sort of big man addition) So, it's not like I'm here to troll Griffin or teh Clippers. But, I do think a lot more is riding on Griffin's shoulders than some of you. And maybe I'm wrong on that, all I can say to that is that Chris Paul agrees with me. And he seems to be in a position to know.

[Quake Griffin]

i think everybody in this forum was on board with our success being directly linked to Griffin and DeAndre's development.

EVERYBODY.
i can't find the thread to link you now....but those thoughts from most of us came before the CP3 statements.

[QRich3]

I never meant to indicate that he's regressed as a player, only that his production has regressed. It's unusual for a 24 year old player with his resume to see his production regressing. More often franchise players are just starting to hit their stride in their mid 20s as they move into their prime years.

So, some of the problem is that we're defining production differently. It's a difference at least in part of semantics.

Come on now, it's 2013, even the most casual of fans know raw PPG and RPG without context are useless to judge a player's production and value.

i think everybody in this forum was on board with our success being directly linked to Griffin and DeAndre's development.

EVERYBODY.
i can't find the thread to link you now....but those thoughts from most of us came before the CP3 statements.

Yep, I think that's mentioned by someone of us in basically every thread of this forum this offseason. Deandre more than Blake I'd say.

I think what most of us are getting at, is that Griffin's post game, or his jumper, or his increase in volume scoring is not what's gonna make this team a contender. I'd say even if he had the worst season of his career we'd still be one of the best offensive teams in the league. What could make us contenders would be him and DJ becoming an excellent defensive frontcourt, and the whole team being able to perform suffocating defense when things get rough in the playoffs. That is our biggest worry and something we are cautiously hoping to get fixed.

[og15]

Another well thought out post.

I never meant to indicate that he's regressed as a player, only that his production has regressed. It's unusual for a 24 year old player with his resume to see his production regressing. More often franchise players are just starting to hit their stride in their mid 20s as they move into their prime years.

So, some of the problem is that we're defining production differently. It's a difference at least in part of semantics.

The other part of course is the context. Of which I've been taken to task on.

I think Griffin is going to have an up year this year and the Clippers are gonna be great, perhaps even winning the West this time around. (assuming health and some sort of big man addition) So, it's not like I'm here to troll Griffin or teh Clippers. But, I do think a lot more is riding on Griffin's shoulders than some of you. And maybe I'm wrong on that, all I can say to that is that Chris Paul agrees with me. And he seems to be in a position to know.

CP is a smart guy, but from history, I would say he's trying to both motivate and challenge Blake, and he's not only talking about scoring more, but about everything. Shooting, defense, rebounding, just being a leader and setting the tone in certain things,. It's the same way Doc came in saying DJ could be DPOY, it's just to motivate and encourage these guys and give them a boost of confidence.


Blake is a hard worker, I'm never worried about him working hard or buying into things.

,..but yes, Paul also knows that he can't go out there and beat a team alone on offense, especially if his team isn't defending well.

[Quake Griffin]

The Griffin stuff is annoying.

I'm thoroughly convinced that if he had a wet jumper, the casual fan that hates on him wouldn't point out ANY of the shortcomings they do now.

Much like the casual fan thinks Kevin Love has a post game just because they know he can shoot and they see 20+ point games in the box score.


The 2 things Griffin gets...especially on here.
1. You can't win with him at a #2
2. The Clippers front court is still suspect.

Which I'm going to stop arguing for my own reasons.
1. I'll bet on Griffin's work ethic and the Doc every time.
2. Our main complaint last year was we couldn't run HC offense. We make moves and pick up spot up shooters that will help us execute in a system and now we're being judged for not having enough great one on one players.

We can't win for losing.
Time to just let the season play out.

[jazzfan1971]

We can't win for losing.

You know I did predict you to have the 2nd best team in the West. Not sure how that can be considered losing for winning.