NBA Free Agency: Blake Griffin signs five-year extension with Clippers

Blake Griffin abruptly cancelled his two meetings with the Denver Nuggets and the Phoenix Suns to sign a five-year extension with the Los Angeles Clippers.

While it looked like the Los Angeles Clippers were on the cusp of losing their two star players this offseason, power forward Blake Griffin will apparently be staying put in Los Angeles for a very long time.

According to USA TODAY’s Sam Amick, “Blake Griffin cancelled [with the Phoenix Suns and the Denver Nuggets].” Shams Charania of The Vertical reported that “Blake Griffin plans to reach agreement on a five-year, $173 million deal with the Los Angeles Clippers.”

With Chris Paul now with the Houston Rockets, Los Angeles is now undeniably Griffin’s team for the foreseeable future. What does this mean for the Clippers going forward?

Griffin has been a five-time All-Star and a four-time All-NBA player since being drafted No. 1 overall by the team back in 2009 out of Oklahoma. When healthy, Griffin is a top-three power forward in basketball. However, he has missed ample time the last two years with Los Angeles.

Griffin has only played in 96 combined games in the last two regular seasons. He hasn’t played in 80 regular season games in a year since 2013-14. Essentially, Los Angeles has to bank on Griffin being healthy with this new, long-term deal.

Should he have his health and a solid point guard to play with, the Clippers can still be a viable playoff team in the Western Conference. He won’t have a ballhandler the caliber of Paul going forward, but he is an adept distributor of the basketball himself. Griffin can run the offense from the free throw line as a bit of a point forward.

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Clearly, the Clippers and Griffin are in this for the long haul. It’ll be interesting to see how his game changes without Paul in the lineup and what the Clippers look like for the rest of the decade with him as their lone star player.