When Blake Griffin was bought out by the Detroit Pistons in early March, he was, by most accounts, thought to be done as an impact player on a winning team, or perhaps as an impact player at all.
Griffin gave up $13.3 million to get out of his deal with the Pistons, who were unable to find a trade partner willing to eat the former All-Star’s massive remaining salary.
There was a sense that Stevens was harder on certain players than others, with Walker among those most aggressively criticized and Marcus Smart on the more coach’s-pet side of that equation.
But at the time, if we’re being honest, it’s safe to assume the Celtics, or any other team for that matter, wasn’t exactly broken up about not landing Griffin.
Forced into a much bigger role than anticipated with injuries to Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Jeff Green, coupled with head coach Steve Nash removing DeAndre Jordan from the rotation, Griffin started all 12 playoff games for Brooklyn and was especially awesome against the Bucks.
It was an honest question whether Nash could afford to take Griffin out even for the few minutes he did.
Giannis eventually found his buckets as the series wore on, but Griffin, whose 22 charges drawn continue to sit atop the postseason leaderboard, consistently stayed in front of what amounts to a human freight train.
The question now isn’t whether Griffin can help the Nets; it’s whether the Nets can keep him.
We never got to see the Nets at full strength in the playoffs, and they’re all going to come back with something to prove.