The Los Angeles Clippers really, really wanted Blake Griffin to re-sign with the team. In fact, when you dig into the lengths they went to get Griffin to abandon free agency and stay in Lob City it’s all a bit unsettling.
Griffin signed a 5-year deal to stay with the Clippers early Saturday morning when free agency opened in the NBA, which was a bit of a surprise given that Los Angeles seemed to inch toward rebuilding when it traded Chris Paul. But the Clippers were confident they could retain Griffin, and made an all-out push to keep him in town. Lawrence Frank called Griffin “Clipper royalty” in an interview on Wednesday, and the team pulled out all the stops when they met with Griffin on Friday night.
That included a museum to Griffin and his life in Los Angeles, which kind of sounds like a Griffin-centric version of Stations of the Cross. It apparently worked like a charm.
Griffin walked into a Blake Griffin museum, basically. Stations set up to remind him of different stages of his life w/ Clippers.
— Bill Oram (@billoram) July 1, 2017
Reading more into this, it seems like this was exactly the kind of pitch that would appeal to Griffin. Because after he saw it, he didn’t even bother to meet with other teams.
Griffin canceled free agency meetings with Phoenix and Denver after an extravagant presentation from the Clippers at Staples Center. Owner Steve Ballmer, as well as top executives Doc Rivers, Lawrence Frank and consultant Jerry West, represented the team at the pitch, which a source described as “a walk down memory lane.”
Upon arriving at the arena where he had played his home games since 2010, and might have only ever returned to as a visitor, Griffin was greeted by high-tech displays that chronicled his time with the Clippers and were meant to impress upon the star power forward that he had not only spent his career to date with the franchise, but also conveyed how deeply they wanted him to end it where it began.
It was, essentially, a carefully curated Blake Griffin Museum, designed for one visitor: Griffin.
This all sounds very much like an episode of This Is Your Life. The Clippers even brought in teammates DeAndre Jordan, Jamal Crawford and Austin Rivers to make their pitch to their teammate. Did they have a public address announcer bring them in after showing their silhouettes on a brightly-colored background? They even brought in Patrick Beverly and Sam Dekker, who the Clippers acquired from Houston in the Paul trade just days earlier.
And then there are the tee shirts.
Clippers employees wore T-shirt after Blake Griffin's FA meeting likening him to MLK, Obama, Ali, JFK, Lincoln, Gandhi, MJ,Einstein,Mandela. pic.twitter.com/BZtXqhdrWr
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) July 1, 2017
This is touching, but also one of the weirdest things I can think of ever happening. Could you imagine having a business meeting with a bunch of people wearing custom shirts with your face on it? Next to the face of some of the greatest human beings to ever live on Earth? Is that flattering? That sounds insanely uncomfortable. Blake Griffin seems like a good dude, but is he Ghandi good?
Anyway, congrats to Steve Ballmer and the Clippers. Please sell these Ghandi shirts in the team store and keep the Blake Griffin museum up for all of eternity. You clearly know how to make a guy feel special.
