Stan Van Gundy is well aware of Blake Griffin‘s injury history, but trading for him was worth the risk for the Detroit Pistons.
SVG says nabbing a bonafide NBA star is so rare and difficult, that his team had to pull the trigger on Blake.
Pistons' Stan Van Gundy: Trading for Blake Griffin is worth the risk https://t.co/XxH5xSrXaI
— Detroit Free Press (@freep) January 30, 2018
The LA Clippers inked Griffin to a five-year, $171 million deal last July.
Per the Detroit Free Press:
“The hardest thing to do in this league is to get a proven star,” Van Gundy said Tuesday morning. “It’s just very hard to do. It’s hard to do in free agency, it’s hard to do in trades.
“You get very few opportunities to do it. The guy’s a five-time All-Star, he’s been an All-NBA guy. (He’s one of the) top-15 guys in the league. He’s only 28 years old. We know the injury history. That’s the risk on it, but that risk was worth it because of the talent we’re bringing back.”
Van Gundy adds that Griffin has absorbed the shock of being traded and ready to contribute in Detroit.
“He was actually really, really good,” Van Gundy said of Griffin’s reaction when they spoke Monday night. “He was surprised. He said yesterday morning he started finding out what was going on. When I talked to him last night, he’d had the day to digest. But he was very good on the phone and knew more about us than I thought and was talking about being eager for the challenge. He knows where we are and that we haven’t been playing well and all of that. I think he wants to come in and help us get that changed.”
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