The LA Clippers continue to win without Blake Griffin but they still should not trade him.
They recently won against the Miami Heat, one of the better teams in the East, without their star (arguably their best player) Blake Griffin. ESPN asked the main players about their continued success.
"Guys on our team got a lot of grit, a lot of perseverance," Chris Paul said. "In all honesty, there's nothing really that can happen that we haven't sort of seen. We talk about it, and then we move on."
This is where the experience comes in. The core of Paul, DeAndre Jordan and JJ Redick (along with Griffin) has been together for years in countless playoff battles and that gives them an edge.
Their coach Doc Rivers also cited experience when asked about how long they can survive without their star player.
"I don't know, honestly," Rivers responded. "I think we have a lot of experience at it. Maybe we're good at it. Nobody really talks about it. Once we get on the court, it's really about basketball."
This experience is part of the reason why hoops analyst Tom Ziller of SB Nation boldly declared that trading Blake Griffin would be "incredibly stupid."
He reasons that the NBA is a league of superstars and a team should work on adding them to their roster, not subtracting.
"In most cases, you should not actively try to trade your superstar, especially if he's among the five most talented players in the NBA," Ziller said. "You usually don't win more by getting rid of your best player. Even if the other players on the team seem to play better when your best player is missing -- and even if one of those other players is also a superstar -- you focus on building the system and the roster around that best talent."
Doc Rivers has already denied that he is shopping Griffin, even if this is a crucial season for the Clippers in the long term and Blake's mistake has been condemned by the team owner himself.