IRVINE, Calif. – When Blake Griffin couldn’t run this summer, he got his cardio with swimming and yoga. When he couldn’t go through his normal basketball workouts in early July, he got on the court and put up hundreds of free throws every day.
Months before Monday at media day, where Griffin said he felt “100 percent, without any restrictions,” the star power forward was going through an offseason procedure to repair a strained quad that held him out for half the 2015-16 season.
He took a week after that surgery to rest up. That was the only time Griffin took off during what would be an extensive summer of rehab, which allowed him to get to where he was Tuesday, putting his proclamation that he was fully healed to the test.
And he passed.
“He looked great,” said head coach Doc Rivers. “He went the whole practice, which I didn’t like, actually. Three or four times, someone tried to get him out and he wouldn’t come out. That tells you he’s feeling good, but you have to be careful with that.”
Rivers doesn’t blame Griffin for wanting to get extra reps, knowing the time Griffin missed and how excited Griffin was to get back on the court and go full speed without worrying what’ll happen next. Griffin knows he might be monitored during the preseason, but he said he feels confident if he had to start playing regular season games today, he’d be ready to go.
That’s a testament to his work this summer.
Griffin stayed in constant communication with the Clippers’ training staff to put together a plan for recovery. Early on, most of his time was spent with a rehab specialist doing what he described as the “tedious, very rehab-esque” exercises. It also included swimming and yoga – two activities Griffin had done in the past, but became a regular part of his routine this summer.
He’d swim with Clippers strength and conditioning coach Rich Williams on Tuesdays and Thursdays, do yoga Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and rehab Monday through Friday.
The lifting kept his strength where it needed to be. The swimming and yoga helped his cardio kept his cardio where it needed to be.
“I wasn’t able to do basketball as early as I would’ve liked to,” Griffin said. “But I was able to do free throws, so I did 200-400 free throws every day. By July, all of July, I did that. In August, I was able to start doing actual basketball workouts.”
But it wasn’t until the end of that month when the sense of excitement, elation and relief reached a peak. Griffin went in for his latest checkup and saw just how far he’d come.
“It just looks like a brand new tendon,” Griffin said, after seeing the results with his doctor. “No tendinitis, no anything…The doctor was like, ‘This is probably as healthy as your tendon’s been since high school,’ just because of the nature of how much basketball we have to play.”
Griffin said after practicing Tuesday he’s past any mental hurdles, but that latest checkup couldn’t hurt in that regard.
“I’m just excited to be healthy, to have a full summer of really good workouts and just to get going,” Griffin said. “When basketball’s taken away from you, it makes you hungry for it again.”
J.J. Redick saw firsthand how hungry he was. Redick said it’s a comforting feeling to have everyone healthy and back on the court, and Redick knows the work Griffin put in to make sure that happened at by the start of training camp.
“I’ve been around Blake all summer, at the facility and off the court, and he’s been very businesslike,” Redick said. “I think he’s expressed how he’s felt and he’s moved on, and his approach has been as professional and as businesslike as you could imagine. He’s always been that way, and I think he learned some lessons last year, and at this point I know he’s just happy to be healthy.”