Blake Griffin made a name for himself with the Los Angeles Clippers although when it became evident that the team wasn't going anywhere, they ended up trading him away to the Detroit Pistons. It was a bizarre situation especially since they had signed him to a huge contract and had digitally raised his jersey to the rafters. Griffin had made a name for himself as one of the best dunkers in the league and when Griffin left, both he and the Clippers fans were sad about it all. In a recent interview with Alex Wong of Yahoo Sports, Griffin spoke about how he felt after the trade and how there were times where he felt he wasn't being respected.
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Per Griffin:
“I didn’t want the [free agency] pitch anymore than anybody else did. To me it wasn’t about the fake jersey retirement, that’s not when I was like, ‘oh yeah, I’m signing back here.’ It was the best decision at the time for me. At the end of the day, the only thing that I wish happened differently was I wish they had given me the same respect like some teams give to guys when they say, ‘hey, we’re gonna go in a different direction and we want to make this work for everybody.’ I went in and asked somebody in the front office on the day of. It was tip-toed around. [They said] you’ll be the first call, that didn’t happen. I completely understand if a team wants to go in a different direction. I just wish I had been privy to the information before everybody else was.”
Griffin also explained how the team was never able to accomplish anything of note and that's ultimately why a change needed to be made. Either way, it's interesting to hear a player of Griffin's caliber admit such a thing.
