Detroit Pistons: Blake Griffin’s legacy in Detroit sports
Detroit Pistons: Blake Griffin’s legacy is complicated but memorable
That 2018 – 2019 season will live on in Detroit Sports history like a summer fling, a precious stretch of time where we fell in love with a player and just wished the whole thing could’ve lasted just a little bit longer.
Blake Griffin may have sacrificed the rest of his career in order to give the Detroit Pistons the best chance at winning. That embodies exactly what sports is all about. “The Team, The Team, The Team.” And he’s not going to get his just due from the national media or end up on any Greatest Detroit Athletes List. But he does deserve his own quiet corner of Detroit Sports History, somewhere Pistons fans can go and say, “Remember that year when Blake Griffin made an All-NBA team and dragged the Pistons to the playoffs?”
Blake’s Milwaukee series reminds me of Steve Yzerman, who willed his Detroit Red Wings to a championship in 2002, despite playing on one good knee himself.
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It reminds me of Isiah Thomas in the 1988 Finals against Los Angeles, who played through a sprained ankle and scored 43 points. The Pistons would go on to lose that series too.
Those are the type of moments that you cite when you explain why you fell in love with a game, a player, a team. Blake gave us one of those rare, beautiful sports moments. He won’t end up on the Detroit Sports Rushmore with Stevie Y and Zeke but we should still remember the Blake Griffin era as a special story, one where the protagonist successfully played the role of Detroit Sports Hero.
Here’s to Blake Griffin.