The 2015 offseason was a pretty wild one, for various reasons.
But perhaps the craziest moment of all was not a signing or trade — it was the recruitment of Blake Griffin.
That summer, Griffin was engaged in a brutal battle between the Clippers and Mavericks, who were both angling for the services of the All-Star forward.
The Mavericks had a meeting with Griff, and they apparently got really close to signing him. Everything changed, though, when his Clippers teammates decided to take matters into their own hands.
They drove around Dallas looking for Griffin and apparently locked him into his place until he promised to re-sign.
Don't agree with the furniture layout but I'm not an interior designer. pic.twitter.com/23PNgQB88z
— Blake Griffin (@blakegriffin23) July 9, 2015
It was a pretty crazy series of events, that finally ended with Griffin agreeing to return to the Clippers at the very last second.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about that story, but Griffin did recently talk about it in a chat with his former teammate JJ Redick on the Old Man and the Three podcast:
“That was so much fun. Once he was like ‘Yeah, I’m coming back [to the Clippers],’ it was just free rein to think of whatever you could to keep this thing going. I think that was the most fun. I guess I’m biased because I’m involved but that was the funniest day on NBA Twitter.”
NBA Twitter was nuts that night, and it’s a moment that will forever be remembered forever. As for the Clippers, they get a bad rep for how they handled the whole “Lob City” era, but Griffin insisted it really wasn’t that bad.
“I’ve said this to people when they always ask me about the Clippers. I am in the camp where it wasn’t quite as bad as people make it out to be. Maybe towards the end, maybe like when some other things happened. That’s not the reason we didn’t win a championship. Our two chances to win a championship were those two years (2014 and 2015). After that, the Warriors and LeBron, they were just going back and forth.”
There’s no going back to change how it all ended. And, considering how things are now, it’s fair to say everything worked out for the best.
The Clippers are competing for titles with Kawhi and Paul George while Griffin plays a big role for the Nets in their pursuit of victory.
Still, looking back on that wild day in 2015, it’s hard not to smile.
