Blake Griffin’s playing days with the Detroit Pistons are now over. On Friday, the six-time All-Star agreed on a contract buyout with the Pistons, the team announced. Griffin (31) will now be an unlimited free agent and can sign with any team. Several leading contenders want to add Griffin for the playoffs, but the Nets are the favorites to score him, by The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
The former No. 1 overall pick has not matched the Pistons since Feb. 12, as both parties agreed he would stay out of the series until the team would facilitate a trade for him or agree to a buyout. The Pistons are in the midst of a rebuild, while Griffin wants the chance to compete for a championship at this point in his career. “I’m grateful to the Pistons for understanding what I want to accomplish in my career and for working together on the best way forward,” Griffin said in a statement last month.
Although they tried, the Pistons were eventually unable to find a trading partner for Griffin due to the large size of his contract, which includes a player option worth nearly $ 39 million for the next season before the buyout. As part of its buyout agreement, Griffin agreed to return $ 13.3 million in salary per Charania.
At this point in his career, Griffin is just clearly not the player he used to be. Griffin was once an athletic high-flyer, but injury issues have taken a toll. Now he has largely been transferred to the role of floor distance, as more than half of his field goal attempts per game this season come from outside the arc. He achieves a career-low 12.3 points per game while shooting just 36 percent off the floor this season, and he also pulls in just 5.2 rebounds per performance.
The Pistons could not find a team willing to tackle the rest of Griffin’s contract, but now that he’s on his way to the free agency, Griffin will have several free agents. The Brooklyn Nets, Miami Heat, Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers are among the teams already expressed interest in Griffin, according to Marc Stein of The New York Times.
Griffin was traded with Detroit from the Los Angeles Clippers in January of 2018 and he made the All-Star team as a member of the Pistons during the 2018-19 season. However, injury issues have plagued him just 38 times in total over the past two seasons. Although he has not been the 20-point and 10-rebound per player he has ever been, Griffin can still be productive for stretch, and he could potentially provide a good bank raise for a struggling team.