Blake Griffin is currently out with a broken hand after he punched an equipment staffer in the face. That incident got a lot of people to talking about whether the Los Angeles Clippers should trade their star forward and there were even some reports that the Clippers would be open to it. Griffin would be a highly sought after trade target should L.A. make him available but they likely won't trade him during this season, according to Dan Woike of The Orange County Register.
There is some thought that the Clippers feel like they are stuck in the middle with their current roster and that in order to shake it up they need to trade on of their stars. Of the three big names on the team Doc Rivers would reportedly be willing to deal Griffin more so than Chris Paul or DeAndre Jordan. Despite this recent off court incident Griffin would stilll likely get the Clippers back a nice package considering he is still just 26 years old and is a true superstar player in the NBA.
The Clippers had talks with the Denver Nuggets about a potential Griffin trade, according to Mitch Lawrence of Sporting News, and they also had talks with the Philadelphia 76ers regarding a Griffin trade, according to Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. These talks were likely just preliminary but it should not come as a surprise at all that Griffin has drawn a lot of interest from teams around the league.
The likelihood in this situation is that the Clippers fielded these calls, as opposed to making them themselves, just to gauge his value on the market. The Clippers still believe that they can make a deep run this season so they plan to keep Griffin in the hopes that he can help them come playoff time. This offseason it will be interesting to revisit this situation because that may be a time when the Clippers look to trade Griffin especially if they don't make it past the second round of the playoffs like many people expect.
Griffin recently had a second surgery on his hand and is expected to miss at least another month of action. The timetable for Griffin's return is a little murky at the moment but the Clippers are hopeful that he can get back for a little bit of the regular season at least. The worst case scenario seems to be that Griffin gets back just in time for the playoffs which is when the Clippers really need him.
