The NBA’s investigation of Blake Griffin‘s fight with an assistant equipment manager is complete, according Chris Broussard of ESPN.com. An announcement is expected next week, and the Clippers have been talking to league officials about disciplinary action. Griffin is expected to be sidelined for about two months after breaking his right hand in a January 23rd altercation with Matias Testi at a Toronto restaurant. “He feels awful about it, and he’s let everyone know that,” coach Doc Rivers said of Griffin. “That’s all you can do. You have to forgive people at some point. I believe that.” A source tells Broussard that Testi won’t be fired and will probably rejoin the team next week.
There’s more tonight out of Los Angeles:
- Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan are both more valuable to the Clippers than Griffin, contends Tim Kawakami of The Bay Area News Group, who thinks the team should pursue a trade. The columnist cites Griffin’s defensive failings, his tendency to dominate the ball and L.A’s record (now 14-3) without him.
- Lakers point guard D’Angelo Russell has heard plenty of criticism this season, but he tells Eric Pincus of The Los Angeles Times that he tries to be hard on himself as well. Russell is averaging 3.4 assists and 2.4 turnovers per game in an up-and-down rookie year, but he thinks he understands the prescription for improving his game. “Don’t take plays off on the defensive end, and on the offensive end don’t be nonchalant.” Russell said. “No player in this league — they might be really, really good and they look like they’re playing nonchalant, but they’re not. Me, at this point, I tend to be nonchalant at times — just getting it out of my system.”
- Pau Gasol had mixed emotions about leaving the Lakers for the Bulls in free agency in 2014, writes Mark Medina of The Los Angeles Daily News. Gasol talked about a discussion he had with Kobe Bryant before deciding to move on. “Whatever we talked about, which was probably a year-and-a-half ago in free agency, stays there,” Gasol said. “I did tell him that I wanted to play if I could with him forever. But I was ready to move on and put myself in a situation where I thought I was going to be a lot happier and play the way I’ve been playing.”
- The Lakers have assigned center Tarik Black to the D-League, tweets the team’s affiliate, the D-Fenders.
So a guy who covers the Warriors feels that a rival team should trade away one of their best players. Hmmm no bias there. Also theres no way Draymond Green is one of the top 10 players in the league. Top 15-20 probably, but the reason Green’s numbers are as good as they are is because he’s essentially the team’s third or fourth option. He’s valuable but guys like Cousins and Davis are much more valuable because they are the #1 option on their team. Those two can carry their teams and I don’t see Green being capable of that on a near nightly basis.