Blake Griffin Is Facing Knee Surgery.

When the Detroit Pistons traded for Blake Griffin less than two weeks before the 2018 trade deadline, one league scout who spoke with CBS Sports at the time described it as “desperate move by a desperate team.” Griffin was in the first year of a five-year, $173 million deal that was going to cripple Detroit’s financial flexibility moving forward, he had a significant injury history and even at full health there was little evidence he possessed the ability to single-handedly change the trajectory of a franchise.

It will be interesting to see how Blake’s injury will impact the Pistons’ NBA over under total.

But the Pistons, losers of eight straight at the time and sick of clinging to the bottom of Eastern Conference relevance, made the deal anyway, taking themselves into the trio of Griffin, Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson.

Reward, as any trade is, and the potential reward of adding Griffin just never justified the risk.