Already plagued by a lengthy injury history, Griffin sustained a sprained knee in November. Griffin wound up missing six weeks, but an unexpected opportunity to trade him to the star-starved Detroit Pistons materialized soon after Griffin’s late-December return. Trading him so soon after that, for all the financial flexibility it could restore, would also paint the Clippers as heartless. “Don’t be afraid to make that tough decision if you need to,” Ballmer recalled West telling him. “No one wants to do that, particularly with someone like Blake Griffin,” West says now.

Source: New York Times May 13, 2018 21:33 UTC