Steve Nash and Blake Griffin were rivals in the early 2010s when they played on rival Los Angeles teams. It turns out that they may still have been rivals last season as player and head coach.
Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News made a recent appearance on “The Athletic NBA Show.” During the episode, Winfield indicated that there were some issues between Nash and Griffin on the Nets last year.
“There’s something about Blake Griffin that Steve Nash doesn’t like. I’ll just say that,” said Winfield. “[Or] maybe [more] like, doesn’t feel is deserving of minutes on a basketball floor … You had Blake Griffin basically just wasting away most of the second half of the season because he couldn’t hit a shot.
“He did everything else pretty well,” Winfield went on about Griffin. “We’re talking about hustled, grabbing rebounds, making the right passes, he did those things well. But for Steve it boiled down to, he just couldn’t hit an open shot, and that was a liability so that was it.”
The six-time All-Star Griffin had his worst career season statistically with the Nets last year. He averaged 6.4 points and 4.1 rebounds per game and indeed could not throw it into the Atlantic Ocean from deep, shooting 26.2% on 3s. By the latter part of the season, Griffin was out of the rotation entirely and began airing out frustrations on social media.
Griffin, now 33, remains unsigned, but it is probably a safe bet that he will not be back with the Nets. As for Nash, there have been a few signs that other Brooklyn players are not too fond of him either.
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