The Los Angeles Clippers were dealt a heavy blow on Tuesday with news that Blake Griffin will miss weeks recovering from a broken hand suffered in an “undisclosed team-related incident.”
According to ESPN, the “incident” in question involved Griffin hitting a Clippers equipment staffer with sufficient force to break his own hand and send the staffer to the hospital. A broken hand is problem enough, but if it really came from a fight with a team employee, this won’t be the last we’ll hear about it.
#Clippers forward Blake Griffin injured his right hand after hitting a member of the team's equipment staff during an argument in Toronto
— Michael Eaves (@michaeleaves) January 26, 2016
The altercation started in a restaurant. It proceeded outside where Griffin hit the equipment staffer multiple times. #Clippers
— Michael Eaves (@michaeleaves) January 26, 2016
If this is at all true, then a giant new cloud of distraction promises to hover over the Clippers for the foreseeable future. The team has been chugging along just fine since Blake Griffin went down with a torn quad muscle at the end of 2015, but they know that to have any chance against the cream of the crop in the Western Conference, they’ll need to have one of the best power forwards in the NBA healthy. Now, Griffin’s absence will extend further, and do so in a way that could truly unmoor L.A.’s season.
Clearly, this story will continue to develop.
(Via ESPN)
