Los Angeles Clippers All-Star Power Forward Blake Griffin was recently featured in a highlight story in GQ with staff writer Zach Baron. For years the former dunk champion has been criticized from everything like his views on religion, to flopping and his handling of the Donald Sterling controversy. Here are some of the highlights of the interview between Griffin and Baron.
GQ- Were you aware of Donald Sterling’s reputation then?
Blake Griffin- When the draft lottery came out and the Clippers said they were gonna draft me, I went to Google to find out more about the Clippers, because I didn’t know a lot. And I was like, “Okay, team owned by Donald Sterling.” So then I typed in “Donald Sterling” in Google, and the first thing that pops up is “Donald Sterling racist.” And I was like, “Whoa!” So obviously I explored that, read a whole bunch of articles, read the deposition at one of his court cases. Which was awesome, if you ever have time to read some of the depositions. [laughs]GQ- What was your impression of him?
BG- The second time I met him… He throws a white party in Malibu every single year, so everyone has to wear white or you can’t come. I get there, and this dude is wearing all black. The only person at this party. He throws a white party, he wears all black. And as soon as I get there, he comes to the front, we talk for a second, and he’s like, “Come on, I want to introduce you to everyone.” Grabs my hand and starts walking me through the party while we’re holding hands, and just introduces me to everybody.GQ- Is it true that he would bring women in to the locker room to watch players shower?
BG- He would bring them in the locker room. Guys would be in there. The showers are kind of elsewhere. I don’t think they would really go back there. But he would bring people in the locker room while we were just in towels. One year he came in and led a “hip hip hooray” chant and held my arm up in the air. Then he went to another teammate and did the same thing. Guys just started scattering as fast as possible. [laughs]GQ- Would you guys commiserate about working for someone like that?
BG- No, we really didn’t. Guys would tell different stories about their interactions with him. And then when all this came out… We heard that it was gonna come out the day before it came out—our coach told us—and this is during the playoffs. We were up in San Francisco, in a team meeting. And because we didn’t know exactly what was said, we were just kind of like, “Oh, okay, well, whatever.” And then I remember waking up Saturday morning to, like, twenty texts. This is 7 a.m. And then, throughout the day, just bombarded with texts about it. I ended up turning my phone off, because we were trying to focus.GQ- Did you listen to the tape?
BG- Oh yeah. [laughs] I listened to it like the first thing in the morning when I woke up, searched for it and listened to it from beginning to end, and then listened to the second one.GQ- How did you feel, listening?
BG- It was unfortunate. I mean, for me, like I said, the first thing I ever Googled about the man, the first thing that popped up was “racist.” So I was aware. I hate to say this, and it might sound ignorant, but I wasn’t surprised that all this came up. Not necessarily the manner in which it was said, or the exact things, but like I said: This was my first impression of him.GQ- Where did the idea to turn your warm-ups inside out before Sunday’s game come from?
BG- I’m not exactly sure whose idea it was. We had planned on not really doing anything. And then in the locker room, literally forty minutes before tip-off, I’m putting on my stuff, and I put my stuff on the right way, and then somebody came by and was like, “Hey, everybody’s doing the…” And so I kind of looked around and made sure this wasn’t like a, you know, “Let Blake put his warm-ups on inside out!” [laughs] And everybody was doing it. I think that that game… And again, I can’t stress enough that I completely understood the gesture. I completely do. Guys want to do something. But I think that game, we let people outside of the locker room get into our locker room. Because everybody was getting texts. I was getting texts, like, “What are you guys gonna do?” “Y’all should do this.” “Y’all should do that.” And I think we let all that just come in and cloud our—our coach calls it our box. Like, “Don’t let anybody into your box.” You know, just do your same routine. There’s gonna be friends, family, especially playoffs; don’t let anybody into your box before the game. And I think we let people into our box.GQ- Do you think it ultimately affected you guys in the playoffs?
BG- I want to say no, but at the same time, even not trying to think about something is energy and effort. The one thing I didn’t want to do is use that as an excuse. Because every player and every person at some point deals with issues—personal issues, whatever it is, they deal with issues. And that was our issue. And we had a full team of guys who could kind of lean on each other, so we were fortunate in that sense. It’s not like it was an individual thing or it affected two people. It affected all of us.GQ- As a fan, what did you think of LeBron returning to Cleveland?
BG- I think it’s great. The way he did it—the way he released that statement or article, whatever you want to call it—I think it shows a lot about him. And to be honest, it shows that he’s a much bigger person than I think people gave him credit for. Because that’s a tough thing to forgive. I mean, this man’s family’s lives were threatened. People constantly yelling at him. And not just Cleveland fans—from all over the world, everywhere he went, he got booed. The Cleveland fans burned this man’s jersey in the street. He was Osama bin Laden. He got so much hate for choosing to go. And I get it. It was about the way he went about it. But that would have been tough, to just really be like, “Okay, you know what, I’m gonna come back home. I’m forgiving them. If you guys forgive me, I’m forgiving you.” I think that takes a lot.GQ- How are you feeling about your own game and your own prospects?
BG- I don’t know, man. I’ve seen so many ups and downs. Every summer, I just try to put in the work, and then whatever shape the team takes, that’s kind of how it takes. If I need to be, like, a guy that scores a lot, I’m willing to do that. Two seasons ago, I didn’t average as many points. The lowest I ever had, my career low. And I wasn’t, like, upset about it or anything. Just, that was just how the team took shape. The starters didn’t play as many minutes. Played career-low minutes, career-low shots, and average career-low points, which seems on par. But I just felt like, after my first year, my second and third, I just took so much heat. I didn’t think I was doing that poorly, to take this amount of heat. You know what I mean? And I hear almost everything. And I’m not sure, not exactly sure why.GQ- Maybe I don’t follow the league closely enough. What heat were you taking?
BG- People just really loved to say how I’m this one-dimensional player, like I’m just bad at this, bad at that, bad at this, all I do is dunk. And it always bothered me. I think last year it changed a little bit. Obviously people are still gonna say whatever they want to say.GQ- You know the band that gets really sick of their hit song? Is that dunking to you now?
BG- No, because it’s not like I regret doing it. [laughs] But at the same time, in one sense, people are like, “Oh, man, I love your dunks!” I’m like, “Thank you. I appreciate that.” And then some people are like, “Man, that’s all you can do!” “He’s not a basketball player, he just dunks.” I get it. Whatever you want to say. I just think that as a player, I’ve kind of experienced an emotional roller coaster.GQ- What else is in your life that’s not basketball? You have a son, right?
BG- He’s 11 months old. He’ll be 1 on August first.GQ- What have you learned from fatherhood so far?
BG- This is what everybody says, and I didn’t really get it. People were like, “Oh, it’s so life-changing, it makes you think about things in a different way,” and you’re always like, “Oh yeah, totally.” But then, when it happens, you’re like, “Whoa. All those people were right!” I just feel changed, in a way. I really look forward to spending time with this little person who can’t talk, can’t do anything for himself besides chew and eat. [laughs]GQ- Are you the father you hoped you’d be?
BG- I wish I was able to be around more. The thing I hate the most is being gone for like two weeks and only seeing him on FaceTime. I missed the first time he rolled over, which isn’t a huge thing, but at the time I was like, “Man.” I had—not a breakdown, but I just had a moment where I was like, “This sucks!” You know, just missing stuff like that. But at the same time, it makes the stuff that I don’t miss that much more special.GQ- How do you date women now?
BG- That’s probably been the biggest trial-and-error area of my life. And I can’t say today I have it down completely. But I was fortunate. I dated a girl my first couple of years out here, and it was great. We got along great. And eventually that ended, but still today we’re very cool. But it’s really been trial-and-error. And there were a couple of times where I didn’t get burned in the sense of, like, you know, getting money taken or anything like that, but just like, whenever it ended, it ended poorly, and then kind of got put out there a little bit. And it’s just kind of an eye-opening experience. But it’s hard, man. Like, there’s so many… People just think about L.A. and they think, “Oh, there’s so many beautiful women out here,” and things of that nature. But it is so hard to find just like a decent, like straight, you know, across-the-line, just like good girl out here. And I think part of it might be because I’m used to, you know, the midwestern kind of girls, and things like that. But I honestly haven’t really truly dated anybody for a while. Not in a real close sense.”
You can check out more from this interview in the October Issue of GQ.
