LA Clippers power forward Blake Griffin shot more threes than ever this offseason, and he’s ready to make it an element of his game in 2016-17.
Blake Griffin has expanded his game immensely over the course of his career. Entering the NBA as a prolific double-double machine, Griffin relied on his athleticism far more often. Now, he’s a powerhouse in the post, a great ball handler (especially for someone his size), an improved mid-range shooter, and one of the best passing bigs in the league. To continue the excitement to see the LA Clippers in action next season, it’s been reported that Griffin has been working on his three-point shot this summer. And it’s paid off.
As of this point, it’s shooting around the elbows and a few feet beyond that has been the sweet spot for Griffin’s jumper. He’s still only attempted 155 total threes in his career, making them at a 27.1 percent rate so far and 33.3 percent (with just six makes) in his injured-riddled 2015-16 season.
It’s time for this to start changing, though. Dan Woike of the Orange County Register has reported that Griffin shot more threes than ever this offseason, and he’s working to be confident from that distance:
"“I want to be someone who shoots from there confidently, for sure,” Griffin said after Thursday’s practice at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center. “A lot of us power forwards, our strength is inside or our versatility. You look at the best power forwards, Anthony Davis, LaMarcus (Aldridge), Draymond (Green) … they can all shoot but they can all put the ball on the floor and they can all score inside. I don’t necessarily think falling in love with the 3-point shot is a good idea, but shooting it confidently from there is great.”"
I completely agree with Griffin in his assessment of how he wants to add the three-pointer to his game: not to fall in love with in and let it take over (some bigs are tempted to take too many now), but to be confident and simply be a threat from deep.
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Along with the obvious benefit of boosting the spacing of the Clippers’ starters and luring bigs away from the paint to clear space for DeAndre Jordan to crash the boards more often, a three-point threat will (obviously) help Griffin’s game in an instant.
He only needs to make them in the low to mid thirties for them to be an effective shot when mixed in with his interior scoring (the simple math of three being more than two). And if Griffin keeps defenders guarding him closer outside due to that threat, he’ll only find it easier to toy with them and blow past with his explosive drives or pass to cutters.
Griffin has only shot a fairly modest 39.6 percent from between 16 feet and the arc the last two seasons, which is good but not great. We’ll have to see how he can step further back and operate from three, but it’s only encouraging if he’s more adept from that range as the LA Clippers’ training camp continues.
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We could see Griffin even further evolved form his rookie days next season.