It seems like an eternity ago now, but there was a time when Blake Griffin was the shining star of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Back then, he, Chris Paul, and DeAndre Jordan formed an amazing and highly entertaining trio that went on to don the name “Lob City.”
It was a cool and relatively prosperous time for the franchise, which is why it’s unfortunate that it ended in such a sour way.
During the 2017-18 season, the Clippers traded Griffin to Detroit in a shocking and unexpected move — and apparently didn’t have the courtesy to let Griffin know ahead of time.
After it happened, Griffin seemed to take it personally, and it was clear that there were some bitter feelings on his part towards the direction of his former team. It was an ugly breakup that could have been handled much better by team management.
Interestingly, in a recent sit-down with Graham Bensinger, Griffin actually looked back on that whole ordeal and got honest about his feelings on the way things played out that season.
“I understand through a business point of view, I completely understand. The team wants to go a certain way, they had a plan, they wanted to win a Championship and they didn’t think that that was gonna happen with me there. I totally get that.
The only thing is we wish they would have gone about it in a different way. The respect of letting your agent know, so hopefully both parties can work out a deal that they both want, that both works for them.”
He went into some more details about what it was like during his final moments with the team, and the awkwardness that radiated between him and the front office.
“We’re standing there awkward, just a moment of awkwardness for 20 seconds and he’s like ‘alright let’s just go in my office’ and I was like ‘I just wanna know what’s going on’ and he said ‘you’ll be the first call…’
And so I was driving home, went to pick up my kids, and I saw Woj’s tweet that says the Clippers and Pistons are finalizing a deal and my friend was giving my updates the whole time. So that’s what I mean. I totally get it from their standpoint, a business standpoint. It was just everything about it that was tough.”
Following his trade to the Pistons, Griffin’s career kind of went downhill and he has yet to make an All-Star team since.
As for the Clippers, they also remain ringless, despite signing Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
We’ll never know what things would be like had they stayed together, but there does seem to be a hint of regret from the Clippers about how they handled the split and it definitely isn’t a good look. Hopefully, they learned their lesson.
