The Paper's reporter Ma Zuoyu intern Yu Kaicheng
Griffin in the game. Picture of this article ICphoto
When Blake Griffin's name broke into sports headlines again, it wasn't his thrilling dunk or scoring record, but his contract was bought out.
On March 6, Beijing time, the Detroit Pistons officially announced that the team reached a buyout with Griffin. Griffin reportedly had $75.55 million left on his contract, but in the buyout, he gave up $13.3 million of that.
After the news of the buyout was confirmed, many teams threw olive branches for Griffin, but as a strong opponent of Harden and Curry in the 2009 draft, it made fans sigh - from a flying "white warcraft" to a role player who is now at a loss on the bench, Griffin has fallen sharply in the past two years.
Why can't griffin, who is about to turn 32, age gracefully in today's NBA league? His embarrassment and struggle are actually the distress of many "thirty-year-old men" in the NBA.
Constant injuries are the biggest enemy
According to a set of theories of sports science, 28 to 32 years old is the "golden age" of basketball players. Unfortunately, this didn't apply to Griffin.
Griffin was one of the most physically demanding players in the league. In an era when the "violent aesthetic" of basketball by James, Rose and Major General West was pushed to the extreme, Griffin was one of the representative players.
However, similar to Rose, injuries became the biggest "killer" to crush Griffin's physical talent. Looking at his injury history after entering the league, it is indeed lamentable -
In the 2009-2010 season, Griffin, as the "proud son of heaven" of the draft, was found to have a fractured left kneecap in the final game of the warm-up match, and his injury worsened due to the powerful dunk in the game, and for the sake of safety, the team let him reimburse him all season and undergo surgery;
At the 2012 London Olympics, Griffin accidentally injured his left knee again while training in the team, and could only bid farewell to the Olympics;
In the 2013-2014 season, Griffin suffered a stress fracture in his back, and that summer he reluctantly refused the national team's invitation to play in the Spanish World Cup;
In the 2014-2015 season, Griffin suffered from an elbow injury, and in that season, he had a staphylococcal infection on his elbow and had to undergo emergency surgery, so he missed 15 regular season games and missed the All-Star Game;
In the 2015-2016 season, Griffin had two strains of his quadriceps and a fractured right wrist, missed 47 games, and was reimbursed in advance in the playoffs;
In the 2016-2017 season, Griffin first missed about 5 weeks because of arthroscopic surgery on his right knee, and injured his right thumb in the third game of the playoffs, and the playoffs were reimbursed in advance;
In the 2017-2018 season, Griffin suffered a "heavy blow" from his teammates during the game, resulting in a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee, missing for a month, and then "full attendance" for two months after trading to the Pistons, but in the final stage of the season, he suffered a contusion to his right ankle bone, leaving him missing at least 20 games for the third consecutive season;
By the 2019-2020 season, Griffin had surgery on his left knee twice, and he had only played 18 games in the entire season.
Successive injuries, especially back and knee injuries, were undoubtedly fatal blows to Griffin, whose physical fitness was the foundation of his life. Rose, who was once equally "flying", also lost his radiance after being seriously injured in both knees. One of the important reasons why James has been able to thrive in the league is that he spends millions of dollars every year to protect his body, and he has never experienced any major injuries in his career.
Tried to change, but Griffin failed
In fact, in the first few years of Griffin's fight against injuries, the "White Devil" still maintained his original style of play. But this "excessive consumption" of the body is also compressing his professional lifespan.
Sports Illustrated cited Stats Perform as stating that Griffin was fouled 48 times in the season when he debuted in 2010 alone, which is exactly double that of LeBron James (21 times), who ranked second in the same period.
It was under this kind of game atmosphere that he insisted on until the age of 30, griffin suddenly came to a watershed.
Time to the game on January 18, 2019, when Griffin faced the Heat's defense and was able to hit the basket three times in more than 90 seconds, coach Spastra was forced to call out a timeout. In that game, Griffin was still trying to "fly away", shooting 32 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists. However, exactly two years later, facing the Heat, Griffin did not have much presence in the 36 minutes, scoring only 5 points, 5 rebounds and 1 assist on 2-of-8 shooting in the game.
Sports Illustrated outlined Griffin's changes this way, "His game looks like he's aged 10 overnight," and when a player who once had 20.9 percent of offense dunks hasn't dunked so far in a season, the seriousness of the problem is self-evident.
And that's just a "microcosm" of his current struggles — according to statistics, Griffin's percentage of the basket offense in the 2019-2020 season reached 45.2%, and it fell to a career-low 24.8% this season, the biggest decline of any All-Star player in the past 20 years.
Griffin is actually trying to change, and the 150,000 mid-range shooting practices per offseason are enough to illustrate his efforts. Unfortunately, in the results-oriented arena, Griffin's change was not successful.
Today, Griffin's average shooting distance is 5.27 meters, and the NBA three-point line is only 7.24 meters away from the basket, which means that he has changed from an inside "Warcraft" to a long-range "turret", however, his mid-range shooting rate is only 15%, ranking the league's bottom, and the three-point shooting rate is 31.5%, which is not qualified for players who shoot about 6 three-point shots per game.
This is where the cruelty of reality lies.
According to Griffin's current physical condition and physical fitness, coupled with his unstable long-range shooting efficiency, even if many of them show great interest in him in this battle, it is not easy to get stable playing time and offensive opportunities in the new team.
Griffin's story is a reminder to every veteran
In fact, Griffin's current situation is not so bad, after all, the Pistons will have to pay Griffin more than $60 million in salary in the future, and he will soon find a new owner. However, as the leader of 2009, Griffin's rapid fall in the past two seasons has always revealed a hint of tragedy.
At the age of 32, the "golden age of sports" struggled to become a role player, and Griffin's current situation also gave the NBA many "troikarian veterans" a wake-up call, how can we avoid struggling to grow old in the "small ball era" where attack and defense are getting faster and faster, and more and more emphasis is placed on shooting?
According to sports illustrated reviews, the 32-year-old Westbrook is also following a similar path to Griffin at the Washington Wizards — although he averaged 34.2 minutes per game this season, averaged 20.3 points and 9.7 rebounds, and delivered 9.8 assists, but last season, Westbrook shot more than 47 percent from the field and fell 42 percent this season, the biggest drop among perennial All-Star guards.
According to the NBA's official statistics, Wei Shao's true shooting rate is only 48.4%, ranking last among 91 players who have played 20 minutes per game and shot more than 10 times. In this list, the fourth-to-last is Griffin, whose true shooting percentage is only 49.1%.
Not only that, this season, the difference in offensive and defensive efficiency per 100 rounds is -5.6, and Griffin is even worse in this statistic, which is -5.9, which means that their efficiency on the court is difficult to help the team win.
In fact, the survival of the NBA's "troikaze" has always been the focus of media attention. Jason Kidd, who won the lone ranger championship, and Vince Carter, 43, are examples of success.
Kidd made his peripheral projection better in his 30s, a change that veterans usually choose. Carter, who retired at the age of 43, not only became an outside shooter later in his career, but also gladly accepted to play role players in the second echelon rotation lineup.
Compared with the past, the NBA's game style is more demanding for most "thirty-year-old men". As an analogy in Sports Illustrated: In the past few years, the old man of time usually let his "NBA customers" have a buffer period, if the checkout time is 11 a.m., then these "customers" can usually play until noon or even 1 p.m., fully collect their things and say goodbye, but now it is not.
Griffin, who is two weeks away from turning 32, is still insisting, even if he is not elegant enough, but this is the NBA's survival rule - when players get old, they either change themselves for victory or leave in disgrace.
Editor-in-Charge: Zhu Yi