For as much as Blake Griffin has already accomplished in his NBA career, we have yet to see him tap into his full potential for an entire season. It may not look that way when you consider he has led the Clippers in scoring each season since he’s been drafted — he’s also been their leader in usage rating in all but two seasons — but playing alongside Chris Paul has prevented Griffin from becoming the full-time point forward he seemed destined to be from the start.
Fortunately for Griffin, he has an opportunity to take over that role as he enters the first year of his $173 million extension. Not only is Paul now a member of the Rockets, the evolution of positionless basketball has paved the way for power forwards like him to be a team’s primary creator. While the Clippers acquired a pass-first point guard in Milos Teodosic this offseason to replace some of Paul’s production, it’s Griffin who will be expected to both facilitate and score in volume for them to compete with the best teams in the Western Conference.
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As crazy as turning a 6-10 power forward into a point guard might sound, Griffin has been one of the best passing big men in the NBA for most of his career. He averaged 5.3 assists per game in 2014-15, putting him behind only LeBron James (7.4), Tyreke Evans (6.6) and Evan Turner (5.5) for the most among forwards on the season. Griffin then finished behind five forwards in assists per game in 2015-16 and 2016-17. He is also on a relatively short list of power forwards — one that includes Karl Malone, Larry Bird and Draymond Green — who have recorded an assist percentage of at least 24.0 in a single season. Griffin has reached that benchmark in each of the last three seasons, peaking at 27.2 percent in 2015-16.
Griffin doesn’t turn the ball over much, either. He posted 2.1 assists per turnover last season, which was better than James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Goran Dragic and Giannis Antetokounmpo. It remains to be seen if Griffin can maintain those levels of production as the go-to option over the course of an entire season, but the Clippers have good reason to believe he can based on his success as a secondary ball handler with Paul on the court and as the primary creator with Paul on the bench over the years. The way Griffin carried the team when Paul missed 18 games due to injury in 2014, for example, played a big role in him finishing third in MVP voting that season.
Since then, Griffin has averaged 21.2 points, 9.5 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 2.6 turnovers per 36 minutes without Paul on the floor, according to NBA.com. The difference is, however, the Clippers were plus-3.3 when Griffin was on the floor without Paul in 2013-14, and they’ve been in the negative since. It’s why they’ll have to be smart with who they put next to Griffin moving forward.
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Pairing him with Pat Beverley, Lou Williams, Danilo Gallinari and DeAndre Jordan gives them enough shooting for the lineup to have a respectable spacing rating. They will likely see similar results with Teodosic at one of the guard positions because he has the skills to take some of the playmaking burden off Griffin as well as the ability to spot-up from NBA range. If they replace someone like Gallinari with Sam Dekker at small forward, though, their spacing rating starts to dip under 50.0 percent.
As long as Doc Rivers surrounds with him the right players, Griffin should have all the room he needs to continue making these high-level reads:
Even something basic like running a dribble hand-off with Griffin can force the defense to make tough decisions. Either Griffin will open up a driving lane by drawing his defender away from the basket out of respect for his midrange jump shot...
... or he’ll turn it into a pick-and-roll...
... or a pick-and-pop.
The threat of Griffin’s passing will only become greater when he plays center next season. Gallinari is perhaps best suited to play power forward at this stage of his career, and the Clippers can pair them with some combination of Beverley, Williams, Teodosic, Dekker and Austin Rivers in the backcourt. Griffin’s defensive limitations at center will hurt them on that end of the floor, but those lineups should have enough firepower offensively to compete against most teams. It helps that Beverley is comfortable playing without the ball in his hands, having made a career out of being a 3-and-D point guard next to James Harden.
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The success of those plays obviously hinges on Griffin’s ability to establish himself as a scorer as well as a passer. Despite not developing as reliable of a 3-point shot as many expected him to have by now — he is coming off his best season from the perimeter in which he made 38 3-pointers in 61 games at a decent success rate — Griffin can put up numbers in a variety of ways. As you can see in the table below, he ranked in the 65.0 percentile or better in four categories last season. He was even more dominant the season before when he finished in the 80.0 percentile or better in three of the same four categories.
There was almost a 50-50 split of Griffin’s assisted and unassisted baskets last season, so taking over as the primary scorer and playmaker shouldn’t be new territory for him next season. He can’t rely on his athleticism as much as he once could, but he is a much more polished scorer at this stage of his career. Whereas dunks made up 20.9 percent of his field goal attempts in 2011-12, they only accounted for 7.8 percent of his attempts in 2016-17. Meanwhile, Griffin has gone from converting 38.2 percent of his looks from just inside the 3-point line — shots that have accounted for over a quarter of his attempts in his career — to 43.6 percent.
One of the specific areas where Griffin has shown growth is in the pick-and-roll. He proved to be a powerful finisher as the roll man when he was a rookie, but Griffin has thrived as the ball handler in pick-and-rolls over the last couple of seasons. Even though it’s not something he does frequently (these types of plays made up 5.7 percent of his scoring in 2015-16 and 7.2 percent in 2016-17), the scoring opportunities he can create as the ball handler could make it a bigger part of his game next season.
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What makes Griffin unique in those situations is he’s too strong for most power forwards and too quick for most centers. It explains why putting him in a pick-and-roll with Jordan, who was on the receiving end of 22.6 percent of Griffin’s assists last season, can be so effective. If the defense switches at the point of attack when those two are involved in a pick-and-roll, Griffin will have an opportunity to blow past the opposing center or pull-up for a shot he made 40.8 percent of the time last season.
If the defenders don’t switch, Griffin can take advantage by turning the corner with speed...
... or lobbing the ball to the rim for a cutting Jordan.
The Clippers can also use Griffin like the Cavaliers use LeBron James by having a point guard or shooting guard act as the roller to get a smaller defender switched onto him. From there, Griffin can use his strength to overwhelm his opponent in the post for scoring opportunities.
When defenders clog the paint to take away an easy look, Griffin can then look to pass to someone on the perimeter for an open shot.
The same goes for how Griffin operates in the open court. He’s a one-man wrecking crew in transition because of his ability to grab a rebound and push the ball himself. If nobody stops him before he gets a full head of steam, Griffin will score at a rate of 1.26 points per possession. If they cut him off before he’s able to get in the paint, he will hit a cutter or shooter for an equally good look at the basket.
All of this, of course, comes with an obvious caveat: Griffin’s health. He has suffered a number of injuries over the last three seasons that have limited him to playing 163 out of a possible 246 regular season games. Seeing as most of those have been lower body injuries, it raises concerns about how prepared he is to put the Clippers on his back and carry them to the playoffs in what will be a loaded Western Conference. Griffin might not even be healthy to start next season (though he has said he expects to be ready for training camp), which wouldn’t be the most promising of starts to the post-Paul era in Los Angeles.
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Nevertheless, if we’re operating under the assumption that Griffin can stay healthy, there’s no reason why the Clippers can’t continue to be one of the top offensive teams in the NBA with him at the helm. Griffin has shown he is capable of being both a scorer and a facilitator in the past, and the Clippers are built to play to his strengths.
At the very least, they owe it to themselves to see how far Griffin can take them as the No. 1 option as he enters his prime.
