The Clippers really wanted Blake Griffin to stay. His free agency meeting was Friday, and the team basically built a shrine to him, described as a “trip down memory lane.”
Clippers employees wore shirts comparing Blake Griffin to historical figures for free agency meeting
The shirts showed Obama, MLK, Mandela and other iconic figures.
Griffin ended up re-signing a 5-year contract for $173 million.
After the meeting Clippers employees wore these shirts.
There’s Griffin at the top right in his uniform, surrounded by Muhammad Ali, Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Michael Jackson, Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln.
The inscription at the bottom of the shirt reads, “LA Pioneers.”
Some of these historical figures have tenuous ties to the City of Angels at best — this really seems like grasping at straws. It looks like the team just picked impactful men throughout history in an attempt to tell Blake Griffin he is just as impactful to Los Angeles.
The message is clear, but it seems odd to compare a relatively inexperienced NBA player to the man who ended apartheid.
Update: After the shirt got a lot of attention, a source clarified the shirts. Kind of.
The shirts got a quick redesign at the time of Griffin’s meeting. Interesting.
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