Detroit Pistons: 3 goals for Blake Griffin in 2018-19

1. Stay healthy

In recent seasons, health has been Blake Griffin’s worst nemesis. From a staph infection to a broken hand, he has not been able to avoid the injury bug. He has only played all 82 games once in his career, and he hasn’t played over 67 games since the 2013-14 season. Similar to fellow starter Jackson, he needs to be available to be valuable to the team. If he’s unable to play for an extended amount of time, he represents negative cap space sitting on the bench.

In his first five seasons where he played his most games, he was an All-Star in every season. In the depleted Eastern Conference, where several star forwards have gone West, Griffin has a chance to get back to All-Star weekend. However, he needs to stay healthy to accomplish that task. Among the centers and forwards to make the All-Star game last season, Kevin Love was the only one that missed significant time that was not season-ending.

Griffin, when healthy, can be a top-25 player in the NBA. However, he’s spent far too much time on the bench in recent years. While injuries are bound to happen from time to time, they have happened too frequently for him.

Unless his game is completely transformed from being athletically based like it was earlier on, he needs to save some of that athleticism. Health is not something super controllable, but Griffin needs to find some way to control his this year.