Blake Griffin is leaving the Detroit Pistons but his legacy is one to be remembered.
There’s not many NBA cities less like Los Angeles, California than Detroit.
No one would’ve blamed Blake Griffin if he hit cruise control when he arrived in Detroit. Not only was he moving from the tropical vistas of California to the cold winters of Detroit but the move was happening mere months after being told he was going to retire a Clipper.
Leaving the Los Angeles Clippers meant leaving a perennial contender for a team that hadn’t seen meaningful success in nearly a decade. It meant replacing Chris Paul and Deandre Jordan with Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond.
If any of that bothered Blake, it never showed. Quite the opposite, Blake embraced Detroit and embodied the blue collar mentality that has come to define the area.
Blake Griffin sacrificed his body over and over for the Detroit Pistons. Despite declining athleticism and a laundry list of injuries and surgeries over his career, you would never be able to say Blake played soft or shy.
As of today (2/19) Blake Griffin leads the league in charges per game at. .55. He’s the only player that averages over .48. He’s 2nd in the league in total charges, one behind Kyle Lowry, despite missing time.
As his athleticism abandoned him, Griffin still found the energy to dive for loose balls, take charges, set screens, and play the role the Pistons needed him to play.
But what will his legacy be in the history of Detroit sports?
Detroit Pistons: Blake Griffin had a season to remember
Blake’s approach to playing in Detroit was put on full display during the 2018 – 2019 NBA season.
Blake Griffin managed to drag the struggling Pistons to the playoffs with a LeBron-like line of 24.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.4 assists. That line not only made him the first player in franchise history to average at least 24 points, seven rebounds and five assists but also made Griffin one of just three NBA players that year (Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James being the others) to post such numbers.
By running the offense through Blake the Pistons were able to make the playoffs as an 8th seed but shouldering such a load took its toll on Griffin. After hobbling through the final weeks of the season with a knee injury, the Pistons’ star was forced to sit out the first 2 playoff games against the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Pistons lost the first two games and an injured Blake Griffin returned in Game 3. Griffin, on one leg, would not be denied, like a comic-book hero or Jon Snow wading into battle, he threw himself into the fray again and again, against an unbeatable villain in MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the best-record-in-the-NBA Milwaukee Bucks.
Blake finished with 27 7 and 6 and a hilariously high 12.5 Box Plus Minus but it wasn’t enough, the Pistons lost Game 3 and would eventually go on to lose Game 4.
During Game 4 in Detroit, in a series where the whistle had swung so far in favor of the Bucks it would make Tim Donaghy blush, Pistons fans took matters in their own hands chanting “Refs you suck, refs you suck.” If he wasn’t already a legend in Pistons history by then – Blake cemented his status by joining in with the fans.
In the final quarter of Game 4, after dunking on Ersan Illyasova (shout out to the former charge-taking champ of the Pistons) Blake once again aggravated his knee, ending the series not only for himself but the Pistons.
Despite playing with what looked like a knee held together with an enormous Stone Cold Steve Austin style brace, Blake Griffin averaged a stat line of 24.5 points, 6 assists, and 6 rebounds. The Pistons fans in the arena, with a vigor that attempted to convey an entire season’s worth of appreciation, chanted “M-V-P! M-V-P!” as Blake Griffin walked back to the bench one last time.
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.
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.