Stan Van Gundy: Blake Griffin Trade 'Worth It' for Pistons Despite Injury Risk

Stan Van Gundy knows of Blake Griffin's long injury history. 

He just thinks the risk is worth the reward.

"Our thinking was this: The hardest thing to do in this league is to get a proven star," the Detroit Pistons coach and president of basketball operations told reporters Tuesday. "It's just very hard to do. It's hard to do in free agency. It's hard to do in trades. You get very few opportunities to do it.

"The guy's a five-time All-Star. He's been an All-NBA guy, [one of] top 15 guys in the league. He's only 28 years old. We know the injury history—that's the risk on it. But that risk was worth it because of the talent we're bringing back."

The Pistons acquired Griffin, Willie Reed, forward Brice Johnson and a second-round draft pick from the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday in exchange for Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris, Boban Marjanovic, a first-round and second-round draft pick in a surprising blockbuster.

Griffin, 28, has missed at least 15 games in each of the last four regular seasons. The Pistons are locked into the five-year, $171 million deal Griffin signed with the Clippers last summer. They'll pay him nearly $39 million in the 2021-22 season, provided he opts into that year of his contract.

Van Gundy said Griffin's injury history is what made him available in the first place.

"If there were no risk involved, if Blake didn't have any injury history, he wouldn't be available," Van Gundy said. "So we take the risk to get that high-level talent. We just weren't in a position, we're not in a position even now, even with eight losses in a row, and we haven't been in a position even before I got here to get draft pick 1, 2, 3 [or] 4.

"The highest draft pick on our roster is 8. That's rare in this league. Everybody's got a top-three or -four pick somewhere on their roster and we didn't. It's hard to go that way. This wasn't a conscious decision to be, some people were saying, 'all in.' It was that a guy became available who's a great player and we took the opportunity to do it."

Griffin will not play in Tuesday's game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.