Blake Griffin to Celts

mcpickl

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I think this part is doubtful unless we make several trades, we only have 12 fully guaranteed deals, plus a partial in Kornet. Doubt that 2 of the camp deal guys make it past the guarantee date.
this is why I said save on the luxury tax and/or clear a roster spot for a buyout guy.
 

cardiacs

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Maybe he's matured. I'm guessing he has a rep as a good guy in an NBA locker room, or else the C's wouldn't have made this move.
Hmm, that's counter to most everything I've heard about him as a pro.
It's certainly true (likely?) the guy might have matured since back then. Granted, it was a long time ago.
I personally haven't felt this way as a sports fan since David Wells joined the sox, though.
 

benhogan

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Blake > Jabari, we're already better than last season's squad

takes charges in the lane, started 20 games last season (for a playoff team)

Agree he's 10-15 fodder. Pick setter, occasional roller. 6 fouls. Veteran presence.

also staying with Brad's playbook, he's a +/- darling throughout his career (other than last season)

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/griffbl01.html
 
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luckiestman

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I know I have mentioned this a few times in the game threads but I used to run into him occasionally when he was in college and I worked in Norman and I couldn't fucking stand being in the same room as him. I really hate this move even when thinking objectively as possible. Sorry.
A lot of pro athletes were probably somewhere on the spectrum of being an asshole when they were 19.
 

benhogan

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I know I have mentioned this a few times in the game threads but I used to run into him occasionally when he was in college and I worked in Norman and I couldn't fucking stand being in the same room as him. I really hate this move even when thinking objectively as possible. Sorry.
I saw him at Kreation Cafe on Montana Ave in my hood a few years back, he came in with Kate Moss one time so my buddy and I didn't pay any attention to him
 

JakeRae

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this is why I said save on the luxury tax and/or clear a roster spot for a buyout guy.
I think it’s unlikely we signed a former All Star vet who has never won a ring and will cut or trade him midseason. It’s a bad look. Guys like Blake are signing with a team like Boston to ring chase. He will be here in the playoffs unless he is necessary to make a mid-season trade for a meaningful upgrade work.
 

PedroKsBambino

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There were times last year he looked useful. But also plenty where he looked cooked.

celts had to make a move with the injuries to bigs; would have liked other options better (especially a bit earlier in process) but clearly he was the guy they liked.

hope they are right
 

Cellar-Door

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There were times last year he looked useful. But also plenty where he looked cooked.

celts had to make a move with the injuries to bigs; would have liked other options better (especially a bit earlier in process) but clearly he was the guy they liked.

hope they are right
One thing about Blake is he's the best passer of the potential options by a lot, and the Celtics really like passing bigs.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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One thing about Blake is he's the best passer of the potential options by a lot, and the Celtics really like passing bigs.
Ex-Melo, none of those options are really scorers beyond opportunistic chances. It kind of highlights why passing is so important.

There are worse things than Blake Griffin cracking jokes and crap talking opposing veterans from the Cs bench. He may well give us a throwback game or two during the brutal post ASG stretch too.

Or not. That's how inconsequential this transaction seems overall.
 

lusky

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I think he's good for a neutral 10-15 minutes a game. For this team, that's needed. Let's hope RW 3 and Big Al can sit more in the regular season. He hustles.
 

djbayko

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Any chance he can play a mentor role in his old age? Has he demonstrated that ability in Brooklyn or elsewhere recently? It was definitely a different situation on the Nets, of course.
 

mcpickl

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I think it’s unlikely we signed a former All Star vet who has never won a ring and will cut or trade him midseason. It’s a bad look. Guys like Blake are signing with a team like Boston to ring chase. He will be here in the playoffs unless he is necessary to make a mid-season trade for a meaningful upgrade work.
I don't think there is such a thing as a bad look in trading a guy you signed for the minimum after training camp has already begun.

Guys like Blake are signing with a team like Boston because it was his best offer in terms of guaranteed money and path to minutes in my opinion.

He's just a body. If the Celtics can get healthy by the trade deadlline, Blake is at best their 4th big. Based on their contracts, and when they signed, the Celtics probably view his as their 5th behind Kornet. That's assuming Gallo can't come back. He'd down another rung if he can.

Blake hasn't earned special treatment here. If they feel like trading him midseason, even if it's just to save Wyc some money, it's not a bad look. It's business.
 

Jimbodandy

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Ex-Melo, none of those options are really scorers beyond opportunistic chances. It kind of highlights why passing is so important.

There are worse things than Blake Griffin cracking jokes and crap talking opposing veterans from the Cs bench. He may well give us a throwback game or two during the brutal post ASG stretch too.

Or not. That's how inconsequential this transaction seems overall.
This. Vet minimum deals don't have much upside usually, but could. Very hard for them to have a downside.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Of course Blake is “cooked” or else he wouldn’t be available for nothing on a min deal. This is the type of veteran big signing you’d expect days after your coach tells you there is something to Luke Kornet being talked about as a starter. “2Bigz4Life”
 

bankshot1

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If he can contribute 10-15 minutes a game in the regular season and preserve others for the real season, great.

He looked slow on pick n rolls against the Celts in the play-offs. I don't suspect he's gotten or will get quicker, but on a team that can play real good D, he's the target.
 

HomeRunBaker

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If he can contribute 10-15 minutes a game in the regular season and preserve others for the real season, great.

He looked slow on pick n rolls against the Celts in the play-offs. I don't suspect he's gotten or will get quicker, but on a team that can play real good D, he's the target.
The upside of this season seems to rely more and more on TL’s knee than anything else. Are we really going to be starting Blake/Kornet until he returns? What if he doesn’t return?
 

bankshot1

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The upside of this season seems to rely more and more on TL’s knee than anything else. Are we really going to be starting Blake/Kornet until he returns? What if he doesn’t return?
TL's ability to stay on the court, is, and I am loathe in saying this, (I'm sports superstitious) seems the Celt's Achille's heal in their march to 18. I might have preferred a younger more mobile/athletic big who might not be a 2nd-team sieve on D.

But in Brad I trust. as I've no choice.
 

Eddie Jurak

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According to Cleaning the Glass, Griffin's on/off differential was just terrible last year, a -8.3 points per 100 possessions in 936 minutes (excluding garbage time).

But the year before, in 548 minutes with Brooklyn after a midseason acquisition, it was just great: +11.8 in 548 minutes. He came over from Detroit that year, where he was a push: -0.1 in 626 minutes.

Throughout the rest of his career before Brooklyn, he was always positive, although not by much in the Detroit years (+4.5, +2.6, +2.1 in his partial and 2 full years with the Pistons).

A couple of possible explanations:
  • Stick a fork in him, he's done. His year in Brooklyn last year was the acceleration of a trend.
  • Brooklyn last year was a very fucked up situation, and he's not nearly good enough anymore to lift up a weird team full of short guards, etc. Put him in a limited role in a better situation, and he can still be a contributor.
It is worth a flyer to see if the second one of those is true.
 

teddykgb

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I mean we saw him with our own eyes in the playoffs. He’s super stiff and slow now and will be another Jabari Parker (which is fine) unless something has for some reason changed on the quickness front
 

128

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I mean we saw him with our own eyes in the playoffs. He’s super stiff and slow now and will be another Jabari Parker (which is fine) unless something has for some reason changed on the quickness front
If memory serves, he had some nice moments offensively against the C's in that series.
 

lexrageorge

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The upside of this season seems to rely more and more on TL’s knee than anything else. Are we really going to be starting Blake/Kornet until he returns? What if he doesn’t return?
If he doesn’t return there should be trade deadline possibilities available, especially with the C’s possessing 2 TPE’s. Until then all they are sacrificing is a handful of mostly meaningless games in November and December.
 

mauf

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I mean we saw him with our own eyes in the playoffs. He’s super stiff and slow now and will be another Jabari Parker (which is fine) unless something has for some reason changed on the quickness front
Jabari has played a grand total of 357 minutes since the Hawks traded him to the Kings in February 2020. Blake might not be a better player than Jabari, and he isn’t exactly an iron man himself, but he’s a much better bet to actually give us the minutes we’re planning to get from him.
 

Eddie Jurak

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I mean we saw him with our own eyes in the playoffs. He’s super stiff and slow now and will be another Jabari Parker (which is fine) unless something has for some reason changed on the quickness front
Super stiff and slow and another Jabari Parker but also able to lead the league in charges drawn? I don’t think the snap judgment is necessarily right.
 

Jimbodandy

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If he can contribute 10-15 minutes a game in the regular season and preserve others for the real season, great.

He looked slow on pick n rolls against the Celts in the play-offs. I don't suspect he's gotten or will get quicker, but on a team that can play real good D, he's the target.
Yep.

Whoever the Cs get as a depth (kinda) big for league minimum or even TPE level is going to be a really flawed dude. When the alternatives are headlined by guys like Whiteside, expectations should be low.

Whoever we play back there is going to be a protected guy. There will be hedging and dropping. We're not bringing in a guy for peanuts and expecting a reasonable facsimile to TL or Al. He won't be asked to be a great switch everything guy.
 

JakeRae

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Super stiff and slow and another Jabari Parker but also able to lead the league in charges drawn? I don’t think the snap judgment is necessarily right.
Agreed. The advanced stats are a bit inconsistent but generally positive on his defense. LEBRON had him around average on both sides and overall, RAPTOR has him as a significant positive on defense and slightly negative on offense, and DARKO thinks he’s been in steady decline offensively but remains above average defensively.

In the regular season, I have very little concern about his ability to contribute positively in limited minutes. In the playoffs, he is definitely someone that can be hunted on switches, and I trust what we all saw on that front over the stats. That said, we hopefully won’t need him at all in the playoffs. And the idea that Blake is another Jabari is just wrong. Blake is still able to play decent basketball in limited minutes. He was very overrated at his peak, but seems to have become very underrated in his late career. All evidence indicates he’s a significantly better player than Melo these days, and one who is far more likely to understand that he’s a very limited role player.
 

NickEsasky

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Super stiff and slow and another Jabari Parker but also able to lead the league in charges drawn? I don’t think the snap judgment is necessarily right.
Maybe he’s just so old and slow he can’t get out of the way.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Agreed. The advanced stats are a bit inconsistent but generally positive on his defense. LEBRON had him around average on both sides and overall, RAPTOR has him as a significant positive on defense and slightly negative on offense, and DARKO thinks he’s been in steady decline offensively but remains above average defensively.

In the regular season, I have very little concern about his ability to contribute positively in limited minutes. In the playoffs, he is definitely someone that can be hunted on switches, and I trust what we all saw on that front over the stats. That said, we hopefully won’t need him at all in the playoffs. And the idea that Blake is another Jabari is just wrong. Blake is still able to play decent basketball in limited minutes. He was very overrated at his peak, but seems to have become very underrated in his late career. All evidence indicates he’s a significantly better player than Melo these days, and one who is far more likely to understand that he’s a very limited role player.
To be sure, if he was a total flop I would not be shocked. But I could easily see him thriving in a limited role.
 

HomeRunBaker

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TL's ability to stay on the court, is, and I am loathe in saying this, (I'm sports superstitious) seems the Celt's Achille's heal in their march to 18. I might have preferred a younger more mobile/athletic big who might not be a 2nd-team sieve on D.

But in Brad I trust. as I've no choice.
It isn’t that we have no choice……but likely Brad didn’t have any choice either. Even with the league being more guard/perimeter-heavy teams are not giving quality rotational big men away at this time of the year.
 

TripleOT

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The Griffin that played for Brooklyn for part of the season two years ago wasn’t that bad, with 10 points (49/38/78%) 4.7 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 21 minutes off the bench. His stats were horrible last year, but Brooklyn was a dumpster fire. Hopefully with the better players around him and better structure, he can turn in the same kind of stat line in Boston.
 

kazuneko

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Just amazing that the Cs apparently preferred Griffin to Whiteside. is Whiteside just a total clubhouse cancer? The team needs rim protection, and even in his prime Griffin didn’t provide that.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Not exactly jumping over cars about this signing but it's not like he'll see time in the playoffs.
 

PedroKsBambino

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Just amazing that the Cs apparently preferred Griffin to Whiteside. is Whiteside just a total clubhouse cancer? The team needs rim protection, and even in his prime Griffin didn’t provide that.
They need someone to play a role defensively—-Griffin doesn’t block shots but he has very good numbers for what you want as a switchable interior defender. There is a lot more to defense than blocks. Whiteside can’t switch and isn’t especially good on interior defense (though blocks and rebounds do count for sure)

They need someone to play a role offensively—-Griffin has a little ability to hit a three and is a very good passer; Whiteside is neither.

They need someone to accept a limited role. Griffin has done that successfully; less clear Whiteside will.

I believe that Whiteside is a better overall player at this point, and that if you needed someone for 25-30 minutes a game on a generic team in a generic scheme he’d be better. But people have to recognize that is not what the Celtics are solving for here…and I say that not really liking Griffin, but a lot of the Whiteside commentary is more like fantasy hoops talk than NBA
 

benhogan

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Just amazing that the Cs apparently preferred Griffin to Whiteside. is Whiteside just a total clubhouse cancer? The team needs rim protection, and even in his prime Griffin didn’t provide that.
we kicked Hassan around here early in the offseason, he seemed like an obvious bench option BUT he must be a clubhouse concern.

Brad (& Austin) still talk to Danny. They would have the inside scoop on his season in Utah.
 

Ale Xander

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Also to be noted, Griffin obviously becomes the highest drafted current Celtic (and tied for all time draft position)

Share was the only one drafted first overall by them I believe (and first pick ever) but have they had anyone drafted first overall by someone else on their roster?
Edit:
Forgot Shaq in green lol
 

gammoseditor

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Also to be noted, Griffin obviously becomes the highest drafted current Celtic (and tied for all time draft position)

Share was the only one drafted first overall by them I believe (and first pick ever) but have they had anyone drafted first overall by someone else on their roster?
Shaq

edit: After looking it up, Kyrie and Bill Walton. And I’m missing at least one more.
 

Euclis20

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Also to be noted, Griffin obviously becomes the highest drafted current Celtic (and tied for all time draft position)

Share was the only one drafted first overall by them I believe (and first pick ever) but have they had anyone drafted first overall by someone else on their roster?
Without thinking too hard about it...Shaq, Kyrie, Pervis Ellison, Walton.
 

Smokey Joe

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Also to be noted, Griffin obviously becomes the highest drafted current Celtic (and tied for all time draft position)

Share was the only one drafted first overall by them I believe (and first pick ever) but have they had anyone drafted first overall by someone else on their roster?
Edit:
Forgot Shaq in green lol
More importantly, Pervis Ellison.