Blake Griffin on Donald Sterling: The Boss

Excellent article that sheds light on what really went on behind the scenes with Donald Sterling and Clippers players. From Blake Griffin's perspective.

SIAP

Link: LINK /

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I was hoping to escape down the stairs, find one of my teammates and blend in with the rest of the crowd. I tried to pull my hand away. Nope. Things were about to get weirder. Two blonde models showed up on either side of me. They had clearly been hired for the event. I knew this because they were wearing size XXXX-L Clippers T-shirts tied at the stomach. I looked at Sterling. He had a big dumb grin on his face. I looked at one of the girls, as if to say, “Uhhh, you don’t have to do this.” She looked back: “Uhhh, yes I do.”

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Later in my rookie season, we were playing a home game and Sterling was sitting in the front row with his usual entourage. Someone from the other team got a technical foul and so Baron Davis went to the line to shoot the free throw.

At that point, the arena was dead quiet, and Sterling stood up and started going absolutely nuts. Now, there are two different Sterling voices. There’s the regular voice, and then there’s the voice when he gets excited. For those of you who have been lucky enough to avoid listening to the infamous tapes, he kind of sounds like a combination of Walter Matthau and Michael Jackson.

As Baron is lining up, Sterling started flapping his arms and yelled to no one in particular, “Why are you letting him shoot the free throw? He’s awful! He’s terrible! He’s the worst free throw shooter ever!”

Baron had been shooting like 87 percent that season. He was by far our best free throw shooter on the floor.

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Of course, he tried to spin it that way. After we beat Golden State, Sterling did the infamous interview with Anderson Cooper. Thankfully, commissioner Adam Silver had already taken quick action to ban him from the NBA for life. I was sitting in the trainer’s room getting treatment with Chris Paul during the Oklahoma City series when the interview came on the TV.

Sterling looked at Cooper with no irony whatsoever and said, “Ask the players. My players love me!”

CP and I looked at one another from across the room and just tried our best not to laugh. We were hoping after Silver’s decision that it was over, but the circus wouldn’t end. The first question I got asked at my locker the next day by a reporter was, “Blake, do you love Donald Sterling?”

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