After Blake Griffin broke his hand punching Matias Testi back in January, he originally had a timeline of 4-6 weeks to return. Then, that turned into “late march.” Late March is nearing, if not already here, and there’s still no sign of Griffin.
Doc Rivers expressed confidence that he will return before the playoffs, however. From Rowan Kavner of Clippers.com:
Doc said Blake's working more & Doc's confident he'll be back before playoffs but can't say w/ 100% certainty. Still no return date.
— Rowan Kavner (@RowanKavner) March 22, 2016
At first glance, you might think that Griffin should take his time and just come back for the playoffs. However, Griffin was given a 4-game suspension for the same incident. Unless there’s some sort of stipulation that that suspension is solely for regular season games, Griffin should at the very least come back so that he can get his suspensions out of the way and not have to miss playoff games.
The Clippers will need Griffin, who is widely considered to be their best player. Griffin has now missed the team’s last 39 games for the Clippers. In the 30 games that he did play, he averaged 23.2 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 5 assists per game while shooting 50.8% from the field and 35.3% from beyond the arc.
