Star power forward for the Los Angeles Clippers, Blake Griffin, is going to miss at least 3 weeks of playing time after undergoing surgery on Monday to remove a staph infection from his right elbow. The surgery was a success and Griffin will be evaluated in 3 weeks.
“It’s probably what’s expected, to be honest,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “At the end of the day, we’re the Clippers. You see what you see. I feel very good about our team. Obviously we’ve lost some games, we have injuries and all that, but you go through them. You don’t panic. You don’t. All you have to do is look at history. The Spurs have done it. You go through stuff. We did it [in Boston] in 2010. We had a ton of injuries, and [people said], ‘Break ’em up, trade ’em all,’ and the next thing you know, we’re in the Finals. I’ll let you guys do all the panicking, and we’ll just keep moving along.”
Losing Griffin will be a difficult hurdle for the Clippers to overcome, as he is their leading scorer this year, averaging 22.5 points per game. Griffin is also pulling down 7.5 rebounds per game this season, and is even averaging 5.1 assists this year, which is a career high for Griffin.
Rivers said that he anticipates that Griffin will be able to return to conditioning in around 2 weeks, ans will hopefully be a part of the Clippers game plan sooner than later.
While the news regarding Griffin is a tough situation for the Clippers, they got some good news as the injury addled JJ Redick. In addition, there is talk that the Clippers will pursue signing Ray Allen after the All-Star break.
Rivers and Allen have a relationship with each other as Allen played under Rivers for 6 years when both people were a part of the Boston Celtics organization.