Over the weekend, I threw the ball off the wall, caught it in my overextended right hand, faded away in the air, and tomahawked the dunk home. The 23-year old me was pretending to by the 21-year old Blake Griffin.
Just yesterday, my girlfriend asked me, "Blake Griffin? (I add the question mark because she was looking for confirmation that she had the name correct). He plays for the Clippers, right?"
"Yeah."
"Good, we're going to see him play on the 18th. I want to see those freckles."
My girlfriend, by her own admission likes weird looking people. Joakim Noah, Blake Griffin, me -- it's only fitting that she'd base my Christmas gift not only around the game I love most, but a chance for her to see freckles.
I became hysterical like a 15-year old Twilight fan waiting for the midnight showing. "Blake Griffin? Oh my gizzod, Blake Griffin? Let me help you find tickets."
I spent all of last night, a good three hours, watching Blake Griffin YouTube highlights and looking up Shawn Kemp's career numbers.
Kemp seems to be the logical historical comparison to Griffin. They're about the same size, Griffin is a little bulkier than the pre-Cleveland Kemp, they're both way more athletic that you'd expect someone their size to be, and they each produce(d) at least one highlight reel dunk a game.
During Kemp's peak years with the Sonics in the mid-90s, he averaged about 18 points and 11 rebounds a game. Griffin is currently at 20 points and 11 rebounds a game, in his rookie year. You saw that right, the rookie Blake Griffin, on a bad team without a Gary Payton, is currently outperforming Shawn Kemp in his peak years. Scary.
My favorite Griffin YouTube video is the one below, taken from Griffin's 44-point game against New York on November 20th.
Everyone has seen the first dunk. Griffin curls his hand around the back of 7'1 Timofy Mozgov, raises up, and the symbolism is clear. It's this type of quiet cockiness that I love about Griffin's game. He doesn't posture and pose after the dunk, in fact, his teammates are more excited than he appears to be. But to even have the audacity to redirect a man's head towards your...um, lower body, speaks volumes. That move was meant to show his opponent up, in a disrespectful, yet legal, and less obviously boisterous way than say, pounding his chest and standing over an opponent.
Griffin's second dunk in the video is less ballyhooed, but even more spectacular to me. This time forward Danilo Gallinari is victimized. I'm starting to think Griffin may have a little Kevin Garnett in him -- the part that hates European players.
Watch carefully at the slow motion part starting at the 45 second mark. In mid-air, Griffin uses his left arm to basically remove Gallinari's outstretched left arm from the picture. The phrase "A man amongst boys" gets thrown around a lot, but I can't think of a better visual representation of that saying.
Griffin's mid-air discarding of Gallinari's defensive effort reminds me of the time he hit his head on the backboard in college while dunking the ball. Griffin is going to get to the basket, it doesn't matter if there's a 7'1 center, lanky left arm, or a backboard in his way. He doesn't bowl over defenders (LeBron) or weave through them (Rondo), he simply removes them. I'm not sure we've seen an NBA player who does this with the ease that Griffin does. The majority of the time it seems like he's playing on a mini hoop against imaginary defenders.
While we'll be sitting too high to get a glimpse of Griffin's freckles, a bird's eye view should be just fine to witness his offensive prowess. I'm just glad I'll be able to say I was there for a moment of his rookie season. The start of what I think is going to be a very special NBA career.
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