Okay, this is going to sound stupid at first, so bear with me; and yeah,it might absolutely be an over-reaction to a couple of great games by Blake Griffin against a team that really can't match up against him...but is it possible that he doesn't really need Chris Paul anymore? He's a capable enough point forward, and the way he led the Clippers through those first two games in Houston, even considering the second half collapse in game 2, has been - and I hate using this word in this context, but screw it - a goddamn Revelation. He was aggressive, you could see that he felt the weight of the team's future on his shoulders, and he acquit himself more than admirably. He looked like one of the best three players in the NBA, he looked like a taller, more athletic version of Charles Barkley in the open floor but an even better passer. Barkley could transform a teams offense all by himself as well, but that was generally by dominating the post and forcing double teams, and then kicking the ball out to open shooters or KJ diving for the rim. But what Blake Griffin showed was not just the ability to be the center of an efficient, potent offense, but the orchestrater of that offense, which was not really something that Barkley was ever comfortable doing. I'm not trying to pull the "this old guy was great but he never did anything like this!" routine which I hate so very much for so very many reasons; I'm simply saying I haven't seen a real power forward run an offense quit like that since maybe Sir Charles. They are completely different players, and Barkley was so destructive backing someone down in the post - Griffin is still working on his footwork down there - but he's shown the ability to completely dominate a game with two extremely serious MVP candidates on the other team (Dwight in 2010 and Harden now) with a nothing but spare parts on his own bench. It was impressive, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
Which is why I'm so confused about how he's come out in game 3. The Blake Griffin that we saw in the first two games is gone; he's back to being the after-thought in the Clipper's offense, as basically everyone not named Chris Paul ignores him and does their own thing. It worked that game, but what about other games, when the momentum swings and the long-range shots stop falling, who do you really want in an isolation situation: Jamaal Crawford or Blake Griffin? Based on game 2, I'm taking the latter - I'm also going to discuss Iso Jamaal a little later. But I'm staying on Blake for now. I'm serious about the Chris Paul thing, though; Chris Paul is still the best pure point guard in the NBA, and he seems to be the only one really concentrating on getting Griffin the ball and letting him work; but as long as he's on the team, the Clippers are his team, and he is running the offense. That's who he is, and that's what makes him great. I don't blame Chris Paul for their dynamic, but the fact remains that CP3 is the alpha on that team, and Griffin is the beta, You can see it in the way Blake plays when Paul is on the floor: gone is the calm, collected, supremely confident destroyer of worlds who never forced a shot because he knew that he was getting the ball back whenever he wanted. He was replaced with the tentative Blake who sometimes forced the issue because Chris Paul just passed him the ball, he needs to make this one count. You see what I'm saying? Maybe you don't.
So here's an example I saw in my favorite team's history: in 2006 the Dallas Mavericks let Steve Nash walk because Mark Cuban didn't think that he was worth $50 million; so he spent $72 million on Eric Dampier. Not his best off-season (some of you are thinking, "who is Eric Dampier?" Exactly. Think a 7 footer with the upper body of Glen Davis, the lower body of Andre Kirilenko, and the hands of Kwame Brown). But you know what happened as a result? A budding superstar from Germany turned into Dirk Nowitzki, MVP, one of the greatest offensive forces in NBA history, and eventual Finals MVP. He might never have become the Dirk that destroyed Miami's first finals run had Steve Nash stayed in town, because as long as Nash was around Dirk never had to grow: but through some heartbreaking losses while having to carry a team that maybe he wasn't quite ready yet to carry, he learned how; and once the Mavs were able to put the right team around him, he showed the entire world just how well he had learned it. My point is that I think Blake Griffin is approaching the same point in his career, if he isn't there already. His play last season when Chris Paul was out, as well as the first two games against Houston, have proved that he's capable of not only running an offense while being the main scoring threat within it, but thriving in that role. And yeah, Chris Paul was the guy taking - and hitting, mind you - the last shot to beat the Spurs, but that's kind of my point: at what point does that shot become Blake's? If he's going to maximize his potential, doesn't that decision eventually need to go through him? Even if he misses, it will help him learn how to make the next one. That won't happen with Chris Paul on the team, first because as long as CP3 is there he doesn't need to be the one taking it; and second because he will always defer to Chris Paul, even if in a season or two he really shouldn't be doing so any longer. I've always felt that something about the Clippers' offense felt a little...I don't know, off; like it was a new jacket that you bought before trying it on, and now you find out it's a little bit too tight across the shoulders, but dammit it cost you $50 and you're going to freaking wear it. Maybe that's what the issue is: Blake Griffin needs to be the centerpiece, but is content being Chris Paul's sidekick. Ditching Paul would definitely be worse for the Clippers, but it might be better for Blake; and in the long run that might be better for the Clippers, the League, Everybody. I don't know, it's just a thought.
Now, back to Jamaal Crawford: I hate watching him play basketball. I have always hated watching him play basketball. The worst day of my life as a secondary fan of the Trail Blazers (meaning that the Mavs were my favorite team, but Portland was my alternate) was when Brandon Roy revealed that he was going to have to retire since, you know, he had no cartilage left in either knee. The second worst day of my life was when that same team signed Jamaal Crawford to try and replace him. You know who Crawford is? He's the guy that shows up to play pickup ball, gets onto your team, and does nothing but demand the ball when he doesn't have it, and blindly shoots it when he does. You're going to lose every single game until that dude starts hitting his shots, no matter how impressive they look once they start going in, because that's how he plays. The thing of it is, you aren't going to be happy once the shots start going in: you just get more frustrated because even if he's hitting them, they're still terrible shots and stupid basketball plays. Every one else on the team stops moving on offensive, cause the ball rarely only leaves his hands when he's shooting it over double and triple teams, he's not going to pass it, so why bother?
That's who Jamaal Crawford has always been; every second he's on the floor, he's killing your offense, whether or not his shots go in: no one else is going to play with any effort, because Crawford is just going to iso and shoot, iso and shoot, iso and shoot. Sure, one in ten games he catches fire and looks like an all-star; the problem is that there is no "heat-check" shot with Crawford: there are just "shots." They would all qualify as a heat-check for anyone else, and you know what the most consistent thing about every heat check is? Low shooting percentage. Crawford hurts you more than he helps you, until the stars align and he starts making those stupid shots. But that isn't going to make his teammates forgive him. There were two specific moments I noticed in the second half of Game 2, when the Clippers' offense was smothered by Jamaal Crawford's poor decision making: the first was, after making a difficult layup instead of passing it off to a wide open teammate, Crawford crashed to the ground, and immediately sat up with hands extended, looking for teammates to help him up. Except that not one of them did; there were plenty of them around, but he had to get up himself. The other moment that made me chortle with genuine glee was in the last two minutes of the game, when the Clippers started making a run to get back in the game, Jamaal Crawford dribbled out an entire shot clock at the top of the key and then shot a contested three from well behind the three point line. He missed the shot; what I loved about the possession was that with about 6 seconds left on the shot clock, Doc Rivers had come all the way up sidelines and was standing in the middle of the court, on the wrong side of the half-court line, screaming at his team. It looked like he was about one popped nerve away from running out onto the court and taking the ball out of Crawford's hands himself. It was amazing. (I tried really hard to find clips of this on youtube, but failed; seriously, I typed three completely different searches and scanned through the first 15 videos for each one. You'll have to find someone who DVRed the game and hasn't deleted it yet for sentimental reasons, so they'd probably be a Rockets fan; in which case I wouldn't advise associating with them any further than that).
So that's really all I got: free Blake (maybe) and cut bait on Crawford. Either way, just don't let the Grizzlies or Cavs win this year and I at least will be marginally content.
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