The NBA would have been better served if Blake Griffin had ended up just about anywhere other than with the squatters lurking the Lakers’ home arena. You just wonder how long it will take Griffin to find his way to a better organization. We’ve been teased by the Clippers before, but we know from decades of self-induced futility that no matter how much young talent LA gathers, they will find a way to screw it up. The faces on the court and on the sideline change, but the bumbling wizard behind the curtain remains the same.
As it stands, the Clippers will have an interesting collection of names. Baron Davis, Zach Randolph, Marcus Camby are the key veterans. Al Thornton, Eric Gordon, Griffin, Chris Kaman and possibly DeAndre Jordan represent the younger core. Somewhere, somehow, it seems like a decent squad can be crafted out of those names. However, I don’t see how Randolph fits and I don’t see how he can be moved to yet another franchise. We’ll see how it works out.
Spanish phenom Ricky Rubio is the consensus No. 2 player in the mocks, but the Grizzlies just extricated themselves from a point guard controversy last season by trading Kyle Lowry to Houston and turning the position over the Michael Conley. Moving Conley to the off-guard spot full time is out of the question because of O.J. Mayo.
Meanwhile, if the Grizzlies cast their lot with Hasheem Thabeet, that would bump Marc Gasol over to the four-spot and leave the Grizzlies with one-too-many slow footed defenders. Thabeet would fit very will with Oklahoma City. In fact, I’d call that an ideal match. So right now, Memphis looks like the wild card in the upper part of the June 25 draft.
