Blake Griffin
Senior Editor
I’m looking at Paul Pierce, sizing him up, looking for a tell. He’s looking at J.J. Redikk. J.J.’s looking at me. We’re all sitting in a circle, holding up our phones in DeAndre Jordan’s elegant living room. We’re all in disbelief as Twitter is going mad with leaks and rumors.
“Who’s the rat?!”
I look at J.J.
Hmmm. This guy didn’t come down to Houston on the plane with the rest of the team. He drove down from Austin. Two hours alone in car? That’s a long time to sit and plot. Smells funny to me.
“Are you the rat, J.J.?”
J.J. says he’s not the rat. In fact, he thinks there’s something suspicious about me. I flew down a day before the rest of the team from L.A. So why was I posting pictures from Hawaii on Twitter? He’s wondering, Do I have something to hide?
“You went for that little drive earlier. Are you the rat, Blake? Are you the rat?”
I say I’m not the rat.
Paul’s looking at … well, okay, actually, Paul has kind of lost interest and turned back to an episode of Naked and Afraid. But now, J.J. and CP3 are looking at me, eyes locked on my plate of delicious chicken tenderloins and thick-sliced sesame seed Texas Toast. Mathias, one of our assistants, swiveled around in the barber’s chair in the corner of the room and eyed me up suspiciously.
“Then how do they know, man? How does Twitter know about the chicken fingers?!”
He had a point. I was stunned.
For most of Wednesday, July 8, a lot of the information coming from social media on DeAndre Jordan’s contract talks was pretty far off-base. When we woke up that morning, a few of the Clippers players and staff took a charter bus to a hotel, to meet with DeAndre. It was the business stuff — the pitch, or re-pitch in this case. I jokingly tweeted a photo of Hawaii, and some emojis of a plane, helicopter and a car in response to Chandler Parsons’ plane tweet. But the truth is that I was already in Houston. DeAndre had been having doubts about his decision to go to Dallas since Monday.
By Tuesday morning, I knew he was really struggling with it. He really didn’t want to disappoint people, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. We text every day. It’s not always about basketball. Mostly it’s about life. I’m his friend above all else. I stuffed some clothes into a bag, ran through LAX and got on the first flight to Houston. My intention wasn’t to go down and sell DeAndre on the Clippers. We promised each other a long time ago that we’d never do that stuff. I just wanted to be there for my friend and hear him out.
When we had dinner on Tuesday night — hand to God — we probably talked for five minutes about basketball. I didn’t want to pressure him. It would’ve felt weird. You know how it is with your good friends. I just told him why I thought he was a good fit in L.A., then I said, “Look, man, whatever you want to do, I’ll still be your friend.” And I genuinely meant it. At the end of the day, we’re all human beings. It’s a lot more complicated than picking a jersey. There’s all kinds of pressure from friends, family, agents and people who you just want to make happy.
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wtf is up with that new look?
