LAUGHING MATTERS
Clippers big man Blake Griffin — occasional stand-up comic and full-time dad — finds peace and his game after a string of injuries plus that dustup in T.O.,
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.
With every joke — from the bit about post-game 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 last August.
“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.”
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 reinjured quad 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 a summer of introspection, that off-season 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 heading into Wednesday night’s action) 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 had only been in the 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 comedi- an Dave Chappelle as a friend and says he 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 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 being sidelined played a part in the actions that led to a four-game suspension and a broken right hand.
He had missed13 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 why 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 longtime girlfriend Brynn Cameron welcomed their second child into the world. In addition to a 3-year-old son, the couple now has a 10-weekold daughter. Perspective, in other words, in two pint-sized packages.
“After we lost to Memphis (last week 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.”
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 job is now to prove it.
“You see the sense of urgency (with Griffin), you know what I mean?” Paul said. “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 — that will only be possible if Griffin stays in his happy place.