Re: Griffin - Seeing the way the dude can handle the ball and pass, I have no doubts that we're in for a show. He's no mere power dunker like Ibaka.
Have you watched any Clippers games yet, Smooth? There seems to be a lot about Blake you don't quite get yet. The biggest difference between him and Shaq is that they don't run their offense through him much. In the triangle, everything went through Shaq unless Kobe deliberately broke out of it. The Clippers are just beginning to feed Griffin in the post. And teams are so terrified of being humiliated by him that the Clips use the dunk as a decoy - you can often see Griffin very obviously pointing up for the lob just to distract the defense (it works!). He will be dunking more once they realize that he's already a pretty polished post player.
Having said that, he's not Shaq and never will be - we may never see that level of dominance in the post again. He compares pretty favorably to Kemp and young Malone though.
That wasn't a dig against Blake Griffin at all. I love the way he plays. Blake is easily having the best rookie season since Lebron's. If he can improve his defense and passing, he's right up there with Kevin Durant as the next preeminent player.
I was just curious about how frequently Blake is dunking and compare that with Shaq in his prime days. Like you said, modern players just hate being dunk on, most likely because it's gonna be shown repeatedly on ESPN. Yet amazingly Shaq was able to dunk for 8 points per game. We just might never see that level of dominance again. Contrary to what many basketball traditionalists (short white dudes) think, dunking is possibly the hardest thing to do in a basketball game. There's a reason why fans go nuts whenever someone throws it down hard.
With regards to the Clippers, I not only have access to their games through the local channels but I've also had tickets to many of their games for several seasons. One time, I even won a VIP night for a Clippers game with 4 courtside seats, dinner, limo ride and signed ball. I would like to say that converted me into a Clippers fan, especially since I've detested the Lakers since the Kobe era but it's impossible after seeing how incorrigibly dysfunctional that franchise is. That team will always suck as long as Donald Sterling is the owner. Clippers have always had much talent and few wins to show for that talent because the players know that the owner doesn't care about winning. So everyone is just playing for their own stats to cash their big checks once they've served their sentence in Clipperland. As amazing a talent Griffin is, I still don't believe yet that he can change the culture of that franchise so I hardly ever watch Clippers games anymore.
Hehe. Well, I was surprised by the Jennings pick too, but the dood definitely has some hops.
His hops are OK. I mean, they're good by normal athletic standards but nothing special by basketball standards. I've seen many guys jump significantly higher than that in the gym.
It's just hard to be impressed by dunks like what Jennings is capable of once you've seen stuff like this from other small guys:
[youtube=560,345]rdpz0SyoWlU[/youtube]
