Lock the doors. Hide ya kids, hide ya wife. Do whatever you have to do to keep yourself safe from the menace.
Blake Griffin is coming.
He is a being of pure, malevolent energy. He is a Category 5 hurricane. He is all four horsemen of the apocalypse. He could probably beat up Chuck Norris.
Whatever you want to call him, it’s pretty clear that the Clippers rookie is one of the most incredible players of his generation. There’s absolutely no question that he’s going to win the Rookie of the Year award this year, barring his demise on the court. No one else is even close.
Consider the numbers he’s putting up this season. He’s averaging 22.5 points per game, good for 12th in the league, just behind Carmelo Anthony. The next closest rookie is 67th in the NBA (Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins). Griffin’s 12.8 rebounds per game are good for 4th in the league. No other rookie is in the top 20.
In fact, the player with the closest scoring and rebounding totals to Griffin might surprise you. Griffin’s 22/13 average sounds a lot like the 22/13 average of Dwight Howard. Take a look at their Spider Graphs and tell me what you think:
Now, clearly there’s a difference between their block totals, but remember, Howard is perennially a league leader in blocks. Imagine if Griffin decided to dedicate the energy he spends on dunks toward blocks. Not only could he rustle up 3 or 4 blocks a night, but he’d be swatting them through the roof consistently.
Griffin is putting up virtually superstar-level numbers in just his first season. We’re seeing something special here, and it’s even more impressive when you consider that he’s doing it in spite of the Clipper curse. This special part of Los Angeles has long been where promising young draft picks go to rot and die. Blake’s trying to turn that all around.
He’s doing it with freakish energy and athleticism. We’ve all seen the dunks. On his first night against Portland, Griffin announced his arrival to the NBA with a deafening tomahawk putback that had Clipper fans jumping out of their seats with disbelief. He put up a 20/14 on the Blazers like it was no big deal. Ho hum. Just another day at the office.
Since that night, he’s had 24 more nights of at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, topped off by the jaw-dropping 47/14 he dropped on the Pacers on Monday. For Blake, this really is just another day at the office. He’s abusing defenders and scoring almost at will. It’s like trying to stop a tornado, or a semi without brakes. Don’t even bother. Just step out of the way.
Opposing teams seem like they’re waiting for Griffin to hit the rookie wall. Sure, he’s been fantastic through 40 games, but it’s just a matter of time until scouting reports catch up to him, right? That would make sense, if his numbers were dropping off at all. Take a look at his scoring and rebounding over the course of the season, though:
If anything, his scoring looks like it’s slowly tapering upward. He hasn’t had a game where he scored fewer than 20 points since December 11. He’s had at least 10 rebounds per game in every game since November 18.
Oh, and did I mention that he’s still a rookie? He’s only going to get better from here.
All this basically tells you exactly what your eyes do every time you watch him, though. The kid is absolutely insane. He missed his first season with a knee injury, and he seems determined to make up for lost time. He’s throwing down with a fury that might be unmatched in the history of the league. At the rate he’s going, Griffin is a lock to either win multiple MVPs or die on the court in the next decade.
Either way, we’re seeing something incredible. We owe it to ourselves to watch before he ushers in the End of Days and Blakemageddon is unleashed upon us.
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