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Blake Griffin is a professional and understands that being traded to another team is part of the business. Nonetheless, Griffin is reportedly “intensely sad” about leaving the L.A. Clippers.
The All-Star forward was traded to the Detroit Pistons two days ago sending shockwaves throughout the NBA landscape. Everyone was surprised, not realizing that the L.A. Clippers were looking to deal Griffin in the first place.
During The Ringer NBA Show hosted by Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor, Vernon tells his listeners that he reached out to a few mutual friends with Griffin. He was told that Griffin is “is intensely sad. He is just sad.”
“It’s nine years there. They promised him the world in the offseason. You know they did,” Vernon elaborates as he reminded everyone about the Clippers’ pitch to keep Griffin in L.A. during the summer. “They gave him $173 million [$171 million, five-year contract, to be precise], they raised his jersey up in the rafters, did the mock museum of his life and said ‘Clipper for life’ and all this kind of stuff. And then you’re less than six months down the road and he’s gone.”
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It wasn’t until a day after that the veteran power forward was able to address his fans in an official statement from his Twitter account.
— Blake Griffin (@blakegriffin23) January 30, 2018
It’s easy to tell that, inasmuch as Griffin was trying to put up a brave face, there is sadness in those words.
Such is life in the NBA. As big of a star as Griffin was in L.A., the Clippers decided to rebuild from the bottom rather than rebuild around him following Chris Paul’s departure to the Houston Rockets last summer.
