Why is the Clippers’ Blake Griffin always overlooked?
“All he does is dunk” narrative
After his rookie season, the narrative was set in stone: all Blake does is dunk. To be fair, he ranked in the top four among all NBA players in his first four seasons in number of dunks in the regular season. He came in first place his second and third seasons, tallying 192 and 202 dunks respectively. (His highest total came his rookie season, when he had 214 dunks but came in second place to none other than Dwight Howard.)
By the time his rookie year ended, Blake had established himself as a household name in the league, solely off of his dunks. That year, Mozgov’d became a verb, he won the Slam Dunk contest dunking over a car, and won Rookie of the Year. Some of the best dunks of his career came in the next couple of years, including the murder of Kendrick Perkins in 2012 which is Blake’s most vicious posterization of his career and definitely in the conversation for all-time. Also, we (along with fans of the other Los Angeles team) will never forget when he obliterated Pau Gasol twice in one night.
In all actuality, a large part of Blake’s offense was dunking in those years. It would be a lie to say otherwise. It was before he developed his jumper or had a solid arsenal of post moves. He used his uber athleticism and strength to win games and essentially turn the Clippers franchise around to face in the right direction, at the least.
Lob City
You can’t forget the Lob City era, which began with the arrival of Chris Paul in Blake’s sophomore season. The Clippers were the most fun team in the league to watch and the bandwagon was in full effect. Any opposing big man that thought they could stop the dunks of Blake or DeAndre Jordan would be proven wrong in the worst way possible.
Now that all of those years of high flying have caught up with him (his legs specifically), his game is much more rounded out. After years of being told by fans that he should shoot more, he finally started giving the people want they wanted. But that’s just led to people saying he should dunk more.
The point is, anyone in 2017 who says all Blake can do is dunk has obviously been stuck in an underground bunker for 4 or 5 years. However, the narrative that “all he does is dunk” still follows him like a shadow. It was what he was known for around the world, and people that hopped off of the Clippers bandwagon have nothing else to associate him with.
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Thankfully, people know that he does more than just dunk nowadays. Perhaps, people have taken less interest in him because nothing is more exciting to watch Blake do than dunk. His mid range jumper and post moves are far from spectacular to watch. That’s not a knock on his skills in any way. It’s no secret that he’s no Steph Curry. (Although he is shooting career highs from 3 point land this season.) They’re just a necessity, and he’s getting better and better every single year.
Will the masses ever see that? Probably not any time soon. Just like any other player, he gets the most attention when he does dazzling things. For Blake, that’s usually dunking. There’s nothing wrong with that, although it would be nice if people paid more attention.