The Los Angeles Clippers were a very good team a season ago with extremely high expectations but their downfall was their lack of depth. This season the Clippers figure to be one of the deepest teams in the NBA and one person who is extremely happy about that is Blake Griffin. Griffin is reportedly excited that the Clippers will be deeper because not only does it give them a better chance to win but also because it will allow him to play reduced minutes, according to Rowan Kavner of NBA.com.
Just because you see that Griffin will be playing reduced minutes doesn't mean it's going to be a crazy amount. Griffin will still start and be on the floor the majority of the time but this upcoming season he will be able to rest more because the Clippers have good players coming off the bench.
"It'll help a lot. My third season in the league when we had that unbelievable bench, I think I dropped to like 32 minutes a game in the regular season... You definitely feel fresher toward the end, but you have to find that right balance of not holding back too much, being able to give everything. Having an elite bench is going to help us tremendously, especially come playoff time," said Griffin.
The season Griffin mentioned was the 2012-13 season when he averaged 32.5 minutes per game as opposed to the past two seasons when he has averaged close to 36 minutes per game. On the surface it doesn't seem like four minutes per game is a big difference but it clearly is as Griffin said that he felt much better towards the end of the season when he was only playing 32 minutes per game.
Josh Smith is most likely going to be Griffin's backup at power forward this season and Smith showed last year with the Rockets that he can still be extremely effective. Griffin is hoping to get his minutes down to around 32 again so that when the playoffs come he will be able to give max effort and help lead the Clippers to a potential championship.
Griffin is coming off his fifth consecutive All-Star season with the Clippers a year ago when he averaged 22.4 points, 7.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game while shooting 50 percent from the field. Griffin has gone from a tremendous athlete to one of the best players in the NBA so if he gets the reduced minutes he's hoping for look out for him towards the end of the season and come playoff time.
