Blake Griffin Hired A Shooting Coach

Towards the end of last season and throughout this summer, Blake Griffin has been working on his outside shooting and free throws with a new partner—a specialty shooting coach. Griffin, who shot a meager 64 percent from the line his rookie season, and a borderline-abysmal 52 percent last year, recently spoke about seeking help in an appearance on The Champs podcast. Blake underwent minor knee surgery after an injury during USA training camp, but will continue to work with his coach when the doctors give their OK. Via NBCSports.com: “I hired a shooting coach. I work with him every single day. Yea (his old shooting form was) kind of a fadeaway or a push-arm shot. Or bring it behind my head—slightly. Like if you watched me shoot you wouldn’t be like, ‘That’s a terrible shot.’ It was decent, I guess. But now I’ve just kind of streamlined it. But I’ve still got a lot of work to do. You struggle with it because when you relearn all this stuff I guess you shoot terrible. You shoot worse than you ever have. Then you turn a corner when it all kind of clicks together. It’s not really relearning to shoot, completely, but I turned the corner and felt a lot better about it. Then I got hurt… lost it all!”