Blake Griffin said he thought Brooklyn Nets needed another big man. On his first call with Zoom after his first workout since signing with Nets, he said they could use “another guy to make it easier, sort of fill in those gaps they have”, someone who can “ease that pressure” on James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant.
Stars cannot earn much without reliable actors, and he would know. Just two seasons ago, when Harden was sharing the backcourt with Chris Paul in Houston, Durant was in a super team in the Bay Area and Irving was on a stacked but unstable Celtics team, Griffin made his fifth All-NBA team alongside of all of them, supporting a huge load for a Detroit Pistons team that needed every bit of their 24.5 points and 5.4 assists per game just to sneak into the playoffs. Prior to his detour in Detroit, he spent six seasons with Chris Paul, mainly in the championship dispute, but the Los Angeles Clippers’ teams never left the second round. We can only imagine how this story could have ended if the Clippers had acquired just one more reliable 3-eD guy, another game maker on the wing or another big backup that protects the rim.
As shocking as it was to see Griffin wearing a Nets training shirt, it is significant that he talked about himself as a supporting character rather than one of the stars of the show. Even in the 20 games he played with the Pistons this season, in which his usage rate dropped to 19.7 percent – his previous career drop was 25 percent in 2012-13 – Griffin averaged 59, 6 touches per game. On a per-minute basis, this is almost the same as Durant’s averages. Joe Harris has an average of 36.9 touches, most non-star Nets. Griffin acknowledged that there will be an adjustment period, but repeatedly said that playing with big players makes the game easier.
From Griffin’s perspective, it’s easy to see why he joined the party. “He was asked to work a lot in Detroit,” said Brooklyn coach Steve Nash. “There was a lot of focus on him defensively, whereas with this team he will not be asked to carry such a large load or absorb so much pressure from the defense, so I think there is an opportunity for him here to have less pressure, less responsibility and, therefore, show what he can do in a bigger light. “Griffin is shooting only 36.5 percent of the field this season, but he did 44.2 percent of his open 3s. Your new teammates will create many of them.
But did the Nets really need another big one? It looked like this when they swapped Jarrett Allen in the Harden business and brought Norvel Pelle and Noah Vonleh over cups of coffee. (No information on whether any of them visited Gumption Coffee, the restaurant next to their training center.) Nash called Griffin a small 5 ball, however, and Brooklyn already has one of these on Jeff Green, who is turning off the lights (45.5% in the catch and shoot 3s, 47.4% in the open 3s) and providing the same defensive versatility that he gave the small Rockets ball last season. There is also Nicolas Claxton, the great man he chose with choice 31 in the 2019 draft. In defense, Claxton is a two-meter tornado, not afraid to switch to perimeter players and agile enough to stay with them.
When Claxton is on the court, the Nets can switch from 1 to 5 without sacrificing size. He has recorded just 93 minutes over six games since returning from knee and shoulder injuries, but in that small sample, they outnumbered opponents by 17.3 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com. In the Nets’ 121-109 victory over the Boston Celtics on Thursday, Claxton switched to Jayson Tatum outside the 3-point line, fell into one position, contested his 3 side pass and forced an aerial ball.
Later in the game, he moved his feet with Jeff Teague …
… Denied Jaylen Brown…
… And forced Tatum into a low percentage turnaround outside the restricted area. (Tatum is so talented that he did it anyway.)
Claxton is not Bam Adebayo. He played a total of 280 minutes in the NBA and 191 minutes in the G League, having missed most of his debut season due to injuries. “He is very young,” said Green, but the 21-year-old is “asking good questions” and “his IQ is very good”. There are not many true centers that can do what he does defensively.
“It all starts with your footwork,” said Nash. “He has great mobility with his length, so he is able to cover a variety of players. He really fits in with our exchange defense, where he can be very active in addition to being obviously able to move his feet and use his length against faster players and using your feet against bigger and stronger players. It gives us versatility, but it also gives us a lot of energy and activity. It gives us a somewhat unique profile for our team with its duration and activity. ”
Claxton is already a darling of statistics. Every 36 minutes he has an average of 20.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 3.1 blocks and 1.9 steals. He’s shooting 80 percent (20 by 25) over the edge, according to Cleaning The Glass, delighting with lobs and pocket passes from future Hall of Fame members.
When Claxton enters the game, “he knows what he needs to do,” said teammate Bruce Brown. His skill set is ideal for a team that has an unprecedented amount of isolated scoring, copious accurate kicks and blatant defensive deficiencies. Also, “he’s working hard,” said Green. The first evidence suggests not only that he is an important part of the Nets future, but that he could be in his playoff rotation this year, as long as he stays healthy and gets the reps he needs in the regular season.
This is not to say that Brooklyn shouldn’t have grabbed Griffin when he became available. Nash said he imagines Griffin helping them as a creator of short-roll games – imagine an opposing defense arresting Harden, then having to deal with Griffin in the middle of the court, playing 4-on-3 with a threat of lob on the rim and all-time snipers spaced at the perimeter. Griffin does not exclusively it has to be a small ball 5; he can play alongside Jordan or Claxton. This season, in particular, many teams have had their depth tested. Nets may not need another big one now, but maybe in a few weeks.
Griffin’s presence, however, makes part of Nash’s job more difficult. Brown, a 1.80 m “guard” has been functioning as a 5 in the attack and thriving specifically in the short throw – he and Harden have been the best pick-and-roll combination in the entire league, according to Jared Dubin in FiveThirtyEight. The rookie, Reggie Perry, came back from the G League bubble. After Durant’s thigh tendon heals, he can even throw a little center. “We stopped trying to undo a list and now we have tons of faces and options,” said Nash. Optionality is a good thing, but “the negative is that we would love to take a good look at each of them, but maybe not. So there are some assumptions that will be needed to try to find out what our rotations are, what our best lineups are , what are our best combinations for different squads and units. “These decisions are complicated. Nash can’t play with everyone.
Brooklyn signed a minimum contract with Griffin, and Nash is going into it without any expectations. “I just want to see him enjoy his game, feel good and move as best he can at this stage, in this period of time,” said Nash, “and I hope to incorporate it into what we do and allow him to find a good role Griffin will probably look better in this context than he did at the beginning of the season. He is, however, a guy who shopped, and the story of the guys he bought is not a pretty one. The fact that he turns 32 next week and is not far from stardom is encouraging, but Amar’e Stoudemire, now a Nets assistant coach, was 32 when he was bought by the New York Knicks and joined the Dallas Mavericks in what it turned out to be his penultimate season in the league. Although Griffin has changed his game much more dramatically than Stoudemire to avoid the inevitable effects of age and injury, the NBA is even less kind to great veterans now.
For now, the adjustment is still theoretical, as Griffin increases his workload after not playing for an entire month. Jordan said he hopes to get a few minutes with Griffin because of the chemistry they built in Los Angeles. “I missed him,” said Brown, who played with him in Detroit. Ideally, these positive vibes will continue as long as Griffin returns to the court and becomes familiar with his new situation. If all goes well, perhaps the Nets’ insane and historic attack will be even crazier. While trying to integrate it, however, they cannot lose sight of their main objective for the second half of the season: to find a way to be just good enough in defense. Claxton needs to play. Marginalizing it would be a mistake.