Is Blake Griffin Now the Most Expendable Member of Los Angeles Clippers' Core?
With a few unfortunate punches, Blake Griffin may have single-handedly swung both the Los Angeles Clippers' immediate fortunes and his own long-term fate with the team.
The Clippers announced Tuesday that Griffin would miss four to six weeks after undergoing surgery on his hand to repair a spiral fracture stemming from an off-court incident in Toronto. According to ESPN, Griffin came to blows with Matias Testi, a close friend and the team's assistant equipment manager, while at dinner on Jan. 23.
As it happens, L.A. has fared well without Griffin this season—perhaps well enough to remove the "untouchable" tag from the team's All-Star power forward.
And as ESPN's Zach Lowe revealed to fellow NBA insider Brian Windhorst on a recent podcast, "I've always heard rumblings, and I don't know if I really believe them, but what I've heard is that if Doc had to pick one to trade, he would pick Blake..."
The More Things Change...
Prior to the 2015-16 season, Clippers president and coach Doc Rivers suggested the team could be due for a shake-up if it falls short of the conference finals yet again.
"We’re right on the borderline," Rivers told Zach Lowe, then with Grantland. "I have no problem saying that. I’m a believer that teams can get stale. After a while, you don’t win. It just doesn’t work. We’re right at the edge. Oklahoma City is on the edge. Memphis, too. We just have to accept it."
Despite looking like the fourth-best team out West, their title chances appear slim behind the star-studded Oklahoma City Thunder, the league's consensus second-best San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors, who are lapping the field this season. Even the Houston Rockets seem to be building momentum after snagging Josh Smith back from the Clippers.
A fifth consecutive exit prior to the Western Conference Finals may force Rivers to do something drastic.
He'll have more room to make adjustments on the margins this summer than he's had in recent years. According to Basketball Insiders, the Clippers could trim their payroll to just over $84 million if they decide to cut ties with Lance Stephenson—which, given his spate of DNPs and garbage-time appearances, seems likely.
In a league where the salary cap is expected to hit $89 million and the luxury-tax threshold figures to skyrocket toward $108 million, the Clippers should have some wiggle room to (finally) close their revolving door at small forward.
But this squad's underlying problems won't be solved with window dressing. L.A. can't simply throw owner Steve Ballmer's billions at its problems. Beyond 2016, a step forward may require a breakup of the core cast.
CP and 3
Through the first two months of the season, the smart money would've been on Paul as the eventual odd man out.
While Griffin was knocking down jumpers and putting up MVP numbers like the second coming of Karl Malone, Paul was busy battling his own body and fending off Father Time. He missed five games to nagging hamstring and groin strains and otherwise saw his production dip to merely mortal levels.
But Paul—whose contract expires after next season—is still a tremendously attractive trade chip. He may no longer be the NBA's pre-eminent point guard, but he remains one of the top three-to-five players at a position whose importance to the modern game grows by the day. Plop him onto a promising roster in, say, Charlotte, Atlanta, New York, Boston or Utah, and his skill and leadership would elevate another team into the league's upper echelon in a hurry.
But over the last month, the Clippers have been reminded of Paul's transformative powers. Since Griffin went down with a quad injury, Paul has played some of the best basketball of his decorated career.
More importantly, he's led L.A. to 13 wins in 16 outings. Most of those victories came against sub-.500 competition, but as ESPN's Kevin Pelton pointed out, Paul has more room to operate when Griffin isn't occupying the elbows:
"The Clippers seem to benefit from improved floor spacing with Griffin out. While he has developed into a fine midrange shooter, Griffin still can't drag his defender to the 3-point line like Pierce, who has made 36.2 percent of his 3-point attempts since moving into the starting lineup.
Putting another 3-point shooter around Paul-Jordan pick-and-rolls makes it more difficult for defenses to bring an extra defender into the play to cut off Paul's drives and prevent Jordan from finishing at the rim, either by fouling him or forcing him to make a more skilled play.
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All of this has made the idea of the Clippers offloading Paul more difficult to swallow. In certain basketball terms, dangling Griffin rather than Paul might make more sense for L.A. As much as they could get a return for Paul, how much more could they squeeze out of a suitor in exchange for Griffin?
L.A.'s Alternatives
Griffin and Paul aren't alone in the Clippers' core. DeAndre Jordan and J.J. Redick may be more superb role players than multi-skilled All-Stars, but each has made his case to stay during Griffin's hiatus.
As imposing a front line as Jordan and Griffin can form together, they've often been better apart. Jordan, in particular, has made hay when Griffin hasn't been around on the elbows—more so than Griffin has sans Jordan.
The same is true team-wide. This season, the Clippers have been at their best with Griffin and Jordan together. They haven't lost much when DJ's held down the middle on his own but have essentially morphed into the Los Angeles Lakers with Griffin as the main man up front.
To be fair, there's some noise in those numbers. Jordan's gotten to try his solo act on center stage against some of the league's patsies while Griffin's played a mere 175 of his minutes without his 7-foot friend by his side.
Still, L.A. could survive on both ends of the floor with Jordan manning the middle.
The opposite would be true, particularly on the offensive end, if the Clippers were to lose Redick. On a recent podcast for The Vertical, Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski told Chris Mannix, "One GM said to me it's become almost a Big 4 this year. That's how well J.J. Redick has played."
That anonymous executive was onto something. Beyond running a hair behind Kawhi Leonard for the NBA lead in three-point percentage, Redick accounts for the biggest swing in net rating of any Clipper, core constituent or otherwise.
With Redick and his balky back turning 32 in June, and his contract set to expire in 2017, L.A. would be hard-pressed to get anything in return for him that might approach his value to the team as-is.
That could be said of any of the Clippers' Big 4. But if the team falters, Rivers will have to think long and hard about putting his best players into a high-stakes game of musical chairs.
Clipper Politics
Should that happen, Paul would almost certainly have a seat saved for him from the start. In 2013, the point guard reportedly used his free agency to leverage the Clippers into swapping a pick to the Boston Celtics for Rivers.
Since then, Rivers has consolidated his power in L.A. He assumed the role of president of basketball operations, in addition to his stake as head coach, once Ballmer pried the franchise from Donald Sterling's hands.
Personnel decisions are now left largely to Rivers, with Ballmer holding the power of the purse as principal owner. For what it's worth, Rivers deflected the idea of favoring flipping Griffin prior to the Clippers' visit to Atlanta:
In a perfect world, L.A. would hold onto its core for as long as possible. It's not every day that any franchise, least of all the eternally hapless Clippers, lands two top-tier cornerstones.
In their time as teammates, Paul and Griffin have each proved capable of carrying the Clippers without the other. On paper, they should have the goods to compete for the team's first title.
That's not how things have played out for the Clippers in reality. And with so many teams still equipped to outclass them come playoff time, L.A.'s future seems fraught with unconquerable foes.
There's plenty of time for the narrative to flip. Injuries to other contenders, favorable matchups and a long-overdue sprinkling of luck from the basketball gods could give the Clippers the nudge they need to get over the hump.
But another playoff stumble for this squad may well put Griffin squarely in the team's trading crosshairs.
All stats accurate as of games played on Jan. 28, 2016.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
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