The future of Blake Griffin remains uncertain, as the former number one draft pick reportedly wants to leave Detroit. The Pistons are also looking for a way to offload the 31-year-old forward.
However, it is not easy to find a mutually acceptable deal, as Griffin no longer has the value in the market he once had while still being on a $36.5 million contract.
Sports analyst Stephen A. Smith thinks coming back to his former team, the Los Angeles Clippers, would be good for Griffin. “I do believe that if you’re in a situation that you’re not happy with and you’re miserable and it’s tough pulling yourself out of bed to get up to work in the morning,” he said on First Take.
“I do think that it’s tough. It can be tough for you to perform on a night-to-night basis. Remember, last year he only played 18 games. He was injured last year. So was the year before that he had ducked like Jalen Rose accurately pointed out. This year the first 20 games that hasn’t been the case. He’s resigned himself to shooting jumpshots or whatever.
“Me personally, I think he could go back to the Clippers and help. But guess what, in order to do that, you know what he needs to do? Apologize to owner Steve Ballmer. Because when the man stands near mid-court waiting for you to finish shootaround just to shake your hand and to say hello to you, you just run off and disrespect him like he did. That was completely uncalled for. That was unprofessional and that was unnecessary.
“Yes, the man traded you and what have you. But have you done to show him that he’s wrong? Since you’ve been in Detroit you’ve done nothing to show Steve Ballmer that he was wrong for moving on and moving to different direction from you. I think that those are the kind of things that we need to think about. But do I think that Blake Griffin could go back to the Clipper and help the Clippers? Yeah. I think he could do that.”
