The Blake Griffin star keeps rising… surprised? Me neither. What is great to see though is all these excellent national writers and bloggers devoting so much time to him and highlighting just how good of a player he is once you get passed the highlight hype.
- Blake Griffin can do more than just create highlight dunks (and rebounds as we saw on Sunday). Rob Mahoney, writing for the NY Times Off the Dribble Blog, breaks down in detail, with video highlights, just how good a passer Blake is already, only two and a half months into his rookie season. (And if you were still wondering how much of a story Blake is becoming, I count 6 Off the Dribble Blog posts he’s been featured in this season already.)
- Kelly Dwyer over at the Ball Don’t Lie points out a number of interesting things about Blake’s play and rookie season so far. Most legendary rookie season since LeBron and Duncan before him? Check. More consistently entertaining than LeBron? Check. As entertaining as Jason Williams was once upon a time? Check, but without holes in his game.
- Dwyer mentions at the end of his piece this Andy Katz article on Blake’s offseason training. I can’t urge you enough to read it and watch the video embeded on it as well.
- ProBasketballTalk with “The Funniest Part of the ‘Melo Trade.” Marc Stein has the full Melo deal report over at ESPN.
- Who is the most searched NBA player on Youtube this season? You guessed it, Blake Griffin. The details from Kevin Allocca at Youtube Trends:
Griffin, who’s best known for his crowd-electrifying dunking abilities, is the fastest rising search among NBA players, and, globally, the fastest rising search on YouTube since September associated with the term “highlights” is “Blake Griffin” (“Michael Vick” is #2). He’s also the top search associated with “dunk,” obviously, since he’s done it so much that, by the end of November, the league already had enough clips to assemble a top 10 highlight reel.
- The Heat’s goal for their upcoming game against Blake and the Los Angeles Clippers? Don’t show up on a poster. Ira Winderman talks to Dwyane Wade about Blake and what to look out for:
The back-and-forth comes after Wade is asked about facing Clippers rookie forward Blake Griffin, a SportsCenter Top 10 fixture with his fierce dunks, his coronation during All-Star Weekend considered mere formality.
“He’s a freak of nature,” Wade says. “Yeah, he is. He’s a special guy.
“Anytime you turn on the TV, you’ve got to watch Blake. He’s as phenomenal player. He’s Mr. Excitement for the league.”
The key is not to wind up in the same frame. If possible.
“I mean, you’ve got to be smart,” Wade says. “A player like him, you understand that if he gets to that launching pad, there’s not too many people that’s going to get in his way. So you can’t just go in there and just try to block everything. You’ve got to understand if you don’t meet him early, that once he gets there, it’s too late.”
James told Bledsoe he planned on staying out of Griffin’s way around the rim when they finally meet on the court.