GreekAlex wrote:I’m terribly sick of watching Blake. I was on record as being totally opposed to the trade when it happened and despite some cute flashes here and there it’s been a miserable experience.
I hate see the iso offense and lack of ball movement when Blake is in the game. My only hope is that he stays healthy and looks good enough to fool a trade partner into gambling on the last year and a half of his contract at the trade deadline.
This iso ball that doesn’t involve the young players is way more detrimental than any veteran leadership or toughness he offers.
The fact that Griffin cannot play effectively without hijacking the offense to revolve around him is one of the reasons why he's such a tough fit and, accordingly, why it'll be difficult to move him. He needs to be the center of the offense, but he's not good enough to be pivot for a successful team and he becomes considerably less useful if he's required to share with anyone. He also locks the offense into an archaic, slow-paced form of offense in which he dominates the ball and it often stops with him altogether.
I don't doubt that Griffin is a friendly and attentive presence to the young players, but his presence does more harm than good in the manner that he devours usage in one-on-one, ball-stopping offense and prevents the team from running a modern offense. And given that none of the young players will be playing his style of basketball, I'd imagine that there's a limited amount that Griffin can can actually impart.
The trade itself was a colossal mistake from the moment it was made. It made no basketball sense, had no redeeming characteristics, and has produced no benefit. His heroics in 2018-2019 earned the Pistons two additional wins over the season before and the worst first-round thrashing the modern NBA has seen to date. And it bothers me that of the multitude of people who came out very aggressively toward others in defense of the trade, exceedingly few have stood up to admit that they were entirely wrong and the folks who spoke out reasonably against it were entirely correct.
As for the now, Casey will almost certainly continue playing Griffin in the exact same way despite the fact that doing so has no benefits and marginalizes development when development is ostensibly the primary focus. He will do so because he is a mediocre coach, a fact which most anyone who watched the Raptors under his tenure knew very well already by the time the Pistons gleefully snatched him up.
davidvolumes wrote:Is simply amazing that Casey would make Blake the initiator of the Piston offense. That was never his Forte when he played for the Clippers. He was a high-flying power forward who got most of his points as he performed acrobatic Maneuvers around the basket. There is nothing in his resume that says Blake can be a ball handling initiator on offense.
At no point in Griffin's NBA career would this have been an accurate description. He's always been capable of effectively creating offense off the dribble, and primary initiator was absolutely to be his billing on the 2017-2018 Clippers. He and CP3 had endured tension over possession for years prior to the latter's departure. Griffin was always at his very best as an on-ball, primary option.
In fact Blake is at best an average three-point shooter who should never be featured at the top of the key.
He was an able three-point shooter on very high volume two seasons ago, effective on both spot-ups and pull-ups.
Which bring me to my main point. Casey seems to be an old-school minded coach who is slow to make changes.
That is certainly true.
