Dispelling the Blake Griffin Myths (Grantland)

[BigTime]

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/dispelling-the-blake-griffin-myths/

 

[furge]

I love Grantland's in-depth basketball analysis in general, but this stuff - the kind of article that answers popular myths - is super on-point.

I think we as OU basketball fans all realized that Blake was nowhere near his ceiling when he was drafted. The casual observer thinks, due to his meniscus tear he suffered in his rookie preseason, that he won ROY in his 2010 campaign as a second-year player. Ergo, he was already closer to his max potential than most players in the actual rookie class that year, therefore he has less time to delevop, fewer innate flaws that can't be fixed, etc. etc. That's just crazy. The dude is a quintessential gym rat, a coaching sponge, a max-effort competitor...

Put it this way: he managed to improve in two years under Jeff Capel. How many other, non-Sampson coached players do we get to say that about? Under Doc Rivers, he'll just keep getting better.

 

[badger]

On at least one occasion, I've seen him just dribble the ball from one side of the court to the other and take/make the shot himself... he can do that, since he gets the rebound on defense and all, so he doesn't have to ask anyone to pass him the ball

also, lol at this line:

such trickery seems to annoy folks more than Chris Paul or Manu Ginobili pulling the trick. (Manu is European after all, say Euro- and soccer-bashing critics who do not know where Argentina is.)