Detroit Pistons: 2018-19 player grades for Blake Griffin

Highlights

Griffin was as good as any player in the NBA during the opening week of the ’18-19 season. While leading Detroit to a 4-0 start, he averaged 28.1 points, 11.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game, shooting over 55 percent from the field and 65 percent beyond the arc.

The highlight of that week was Griffin’s dominant performance in an Oct. 23 overtime win against the Philadelphia 76ers. Griffin scored a career-high 50 points that night to go with 14 rebounds and six assists.

In January, the Pistons were on a 4-game losing streak in the middle of a West Coast road trip. The penultimate game of that trip was in L.A., against the Clippers. Even if it hadn’t been Griffin’s first time facing his former team, it was still an important game for the Pistons, who were under-.500 and fighting for their playoff lives.

Griffin responded with 44 points, eight rebounds, five assists and three steals in a Detroit victory.

Putting his increasingly versatile skill-set to work, Griffin recorded two triple-doubles this season. One of them happened during a Feb. 25 win over the playoff-bound Indiana Pacers, in which Griffin finished with 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. He knocked down five 3-pointers and only turned the ball over twice as well.

Griffin is still a highlight-reel player. But the clip below shows just how much different those highlights look today compared to during his high-flying heyday.