Los Angeles Clippers Basketball Team

Blake Griffin's basketball torture -- jokingly called "detention" by one of his Clippers teammates -- came to an official end on Thursday. Limitations were lifted and the power forward was free to roam and rebound at will during a high-energy scrimmage at the Clippers' training facility in Playa Vista. Of course, the so-called detention was for his own protection. And it wasn't because he'd done anything wrong. The Clippers rookie had been one tremendously frustrated No. 1 overall draft pick since he hurt his left knee a few days before training camp opened late last month.

'Novak for the win," Ralph Lawler says, his deep voice climbing up the sound ladder with each syllable, in perfect rhythm with Steve Novak's three-point shot as it arcs and settles into the net. As time runs out, there is Lawler's voice, sweet sounding as any symphony, musical and exuberant and just so heartfelt. BIIIIINNNGOOO.

Breathtaking? And how about adding breath-stopping to the mix? The Clippers' Blake Griffin managed to do just that in one memorable quarter in his highly anticipated NBA exhibition debut, a 97-85 Clippers victory against the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night at Staples Center. In all, he had eight points on three-for-six shooting and five rebounds in 21 minutes. His second quarter featured mammoth dunks and one sequence in which he went flying over the scorer's table then, just as swiftly, recollected himself and displayed some showy ball-handling skills before turning it over.

Blake Griffin hasn't been a Clipper for long . . . but long enough, apparently. It hasn't even been a month since the NBA draft, but the prized rookie already has an injury that will keep him out of action for weeks, not days. The team issued a release Wednesday saying the power forward suffered a strained right shoulder and will be resting for three to four weeks. This means Griffin, the No. 1 overall draft pick, will miss the USA Basketball national team mini-camp in Las Vegas.

Membership in the NBA draft lottery, seemingly semi-permanent for the Clippers, ended up having its benefits. It took a nightmare of a 19-win season to get to this place, the eve of the eagerly awaited debut of No. 1 draft pick Blake Griffin in training camp. But all things Griffin hardly will be the only compelling story line in what surely will be another eventful season. They are, after all, the Clippers: 1. The Curse of Jenny Craig? Baron Davis showed up last season and said all the right things.

After suffering a knee injury five days before the beginning of training camp, Clippers forward Blake Griffin will participate in contact drills in practice Thursday and is expected to play in the Clippers' exhibition game Friday night at Staples against the Portland Trail Blazers. "I've only been out a week, but it feels like a month," Griffin said after the Clippers practiced Tuesday. "Even watching practice is rough. It's worse that I'm completely dressed and I have the uniform on."

Only the Clippers, it seems, could be involved in a fight in which a fair outcome is unattainable, and a rooting interest is impossible. It's Elgin Baylor suing Donald Sterling, a fallen general manager charging the falling owner of being racist and cheap, allegations that apparently occurred to Baylor only after working there for more than two decades. One cannot pick sides, only emotions. Sadness comes to mind. How do you back an owner who is now fighting two lawsuits accusing him of racism?

The basketball magazine definitely fell into the wrong hands the other day in the Clippers' locker room, inspiring hilarity and providing fodder for rookie-on-rookie teasing for hours. Days, maybe. It looked like a foreign comic book and featured an overblown caricature of Clippers guard Eric Gordon. His head was huge, like some giant balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Gordon, 20, seemed to take the teasing in stride from fellow rookies DeAndre Jordan and Mike Taylor.

Look at it this way: The Clippers' training staff and Coach Mike Dunleavy are going to get in excellent shape if the first few days of camp are any indication. How so? Chasing after rookie and No. 1 draft pick Blake Griffin , who supposedly is limited in camp because of his injured left knee. "He's a guy you can't keep off the court," teammate Marcus Camby said after practice Thursday. "I mean, he's not supposed to be shooting and you've got Jasen [ Powell ]

One of the more provocative allegations in the lawsuit filed by former Clippers executive and NBA Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor against the Clippers, the NBA and owner Donald Sterling and team president Andy Roeser dealt with a comment allegedly made by Sterling about his former player Danny Manning.