Comedian Griffin's play serious business for Clippers
If it’s true that all the best comedians are inspired by their darker side, then it made perfect sense that Blake Griffin was a smash hit on that Montreal stage last August.
With every joke – from the bit about postgame interviews and why they’re absurd to the player’s perspective on being traded (“Imagine if there were trades in relationships…”) to the Thanksgiving-themed strip club segment at the end – the Los Angeles Clippers star who moonlights as a funny man off the floor earned the hearty laughter of a quaint crowd at the Just For Laughs Festival.
“Basketball is obviously always my main thing, (but) I really enjoy doing something (where) you get outside of your comfort zone,” Griffin told USA TODAY Sports recently. “That (show in Montreal) was, like, terrifying. Small audience. Not even like a remotely big show at the festival, but still, like – terrifying…I think that's how you get better as a person. You figure things out about yourself, and you have confidence about different things, so anything I do I want to do it as well as I possibly can and not just do it to do it.”
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If only last season was half that funny.
From the left quadriceps injury that sidelined him in late December to the fight with a team employee a month later at a Toronto restaurant that made matters so much worse to the quad reinjuring in late April that ended his 2015-16 campaign midway through a first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers, these were some of the darkest days of Griffin’s seven-year NBA career.
But after his summer of introspection, that offseason stretch in which the healing came in so many different forms, the light is back in Griffin’s life. And the Clippers, cast aside amid the Golden State Warriors’ rise, are looking like title contenders again.
Griffin, who jokes less than ever on the floor, is not only turning in his typical All-Star level production (21.9 points, 9.3 rebounds, 4.4 assists per game) but defending in a way that helped the Clippers get off to a league-leading 13-2 start. Through 15 games, they were second in defensive rating at 97.7 points allowed per 100 possessions (in Griffin’s six previous seasons, the Clippers have only been top 10 in defensive rating three times, and never higher than fifth).
Griffin’s passion for punchlines of the more conventional sort deserves part of the credit, if only because it served as a therapeutic and challenging distraction amid all the guilt and frustration. When Griffin isn’t working on his own material, he’s honing the comedy craft by studying the greats (he counts renowned comedian Dave Chappelle as a friend and has watched every episode of Saturday Night Live since as far back as 1995; “I’ve watched (farther back) than that too,” he adds). Leading into the Montreal performance that made the YouTube rounds and received such rave reviews, he tested his material on a Los Angeles crowd before doing five short sets in all as part of the Just For Laughs festival (“Some (sets) went to 15 (minutes). One night I was feeling good, and I stretched it out a little bit,” he said.)
Being on the floor again is a massive weight lifted off his psyche, too. As anyone who knows what happened between him and his friend/former assistant equipment manager Matias Testi on that Jan. 31 day in Toronto will tell you, Griffin’s angst over not playing played a part in the actions that led to a four-game suspension and a broken right hand.
He had missed 13 games by the time the dust-up took place, having seen his teammates go 11-2 without him while being told that another setback with the quad injury would cost him more time. Griffin played just 35 games during the regular season. But as he tells it, fatherhood – and the maturity that so often comes with it – is the main reason he seems to have found some recent peace.
Not long after the 27-year-old Griffin was given the green-light to resume full-court basketball activities heading into training camp, he and his longtime girlfriend, Brynn Cameron, welcomed their second child into the world. In addition to their three-year-old son, the couple now has a 10-week-old daughter. Perspective, in other words, in two pint-sized packages.
“After we lost to Memphis (on Wednesday at Staples Center) – and only my son came to the game that night – so we were driving back in the car with him and he was asking questions, like saying stuff and I find myself just like laughing, and not even thinking about the game,” Griffin said. “And at least for that car ride home, and when I'm putting him to bed, it gets your mind off of it. I'm just happy – happy with where I'm at, and that's the big reason why.
“It definitely is different (from his younger years). I think everything is put into perspective. When you have a tough year, or a year that didn't go the way you wanted it, especially the playoffs and all that and not being able to take advantage of our team and our talent on our team, you feel that. And whenever something is taken away from you like that, you definitely cherish it more. Not to say I don't always cherish it, but when I didn't get to play for 40-something games or however many it was, it sucks, and it's kind of a good reminder of what you're doing here and why you're here.”
The pressure-packed reality of their situation doesn’t hurt, either.
Nearly five years after the Chris Paul trade made the Clippers instant elites, their All-Star point guard – like Griffin – also has the ability to become a free agent this summer. Shooting guard J.J. Redick will be an unrestricted free agent as well. Uncertainty abounds, with coach and president of basketball operations Doc Rivers having decided that this core was championship-worthy and their jobs now to prove it.
“You see the sense of urgency (with Griffin), you know what I mean?” Paul told USA TODAY Sports. “I think we both share that, and understand that we've got everything that we could ever want as far as an unbelievable family, you get to play the game that we love, and have all the accolades, and now we just want that one thing.”
The championship that has eluded them for so long, and one that will only be possible if Griffin stays in his happy place.
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“I just think he's in a good place,” Rivers told USA TODAY Sports. “I don't even look at what happened to him last year, or anything like that, that's the past. I just think he's at the right place in his life age-wise, maturity-wise, basketball-wise, and he's back to proving that he's one of the best players in the league.
“I think he's at the best place in his life, because he doesn't really care about (individual status). He wants to win, so he's driving the team. He's pushing the team. He wants to win. He knows that will cement the other stuff, so I think this is the best place he's ever been.”