Blake Griffin apologizes to LA Clippers fans for last season

Blake Griffin has written a piece on The Players’ Tribune to apologize to LA Clippers fans for last season and the incident with Matias Testi.

The 2015-16 NBA season was Blake Griffin’s toughest since entering the league. Everything started so well with some of the best basketball of his career for a 30-game stretch before Christmas, until a game on December 25 itself against the Lakers saw Griffin suffer a partial tear in his quadricep. From that moment on, with the quad injury that was never resolved and the infamous incident of Griffin breaking his hand by punching staff member Matias Testi in Toronto, it was a rough season.

To address everything that happened and to first and foremost apologize to the fans of the LA Clippers, Griffin has penned a well written piece at The Players’ Tribune.

Here’s how he began his apology:

"I’ll just get it out of the way.Last season sucked.I am truly sorry. What happened in Toronto was 100% my fault. I messed up.There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it. And I don’t mean that in some clichéd “not a day goes by” way.I genuinely think about it every single day, and I just feel like I let down the fans who have been riding with us since the beginning.If I took one positive from last season, it’s that there were a lot of people who were obviously disappointed in me, and who told me so, but who were still in my corner. I’ll never forget what those people did for me during a time when I literally had to turn off my phone to get away from it all."

Griffin went on to mention the relentless hate and snide jokes he’ll get on Twitter, all linking back to that night in Toronto. No, it’s not excusable and Blake’s actions were wrong. That goes without saying and it was a real disturbance, at least from a media standpoint and the attention on both the team and Griffin’s worth in L.A. that followed.

However, people make mistakes. Sometimes athletes, who are real people, too, get into fights and sometimes those fights can go too far. It’s not ok, but it’s human. Griffin acknowledges that, and expressed his sincerest apologies again in written form with his piece.

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Griffin also touched on the overall nature of how the Clippers are viewed in L.A. Matters have improved with the rise of Lob City over the last few years, but it’s still a Lakers town, a Dodgers town, and certainly not a Clippers town.

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Blake recalled one instance in 2013 when Chris Paul went to throw a pitch at a Dodgers game with his four-year-old son, and was still met by a sea of boos. It’s remembering times like this that encouraged Griffin to thank the loyal Clippers fans who have been there through the hard times, from other local distaste to the Donald Sterling dilemma.

To conclude his piece, Griffin detailed a phone call from his older brother Taylor, someone who has always been a role model for Blake, inspiring him with such a strong work ethic to help him become the player he is today.

Blake said an honest comment from Taylor helped encourage a realization, and he’s ready to prove himself in 2016-17:

"When I was at my lowest point, a few days after the incident happened last season, I got a call from my older brother Taylor, who was over in Italy.He didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear. He said to me straight up, “Man, what are you doing? This is not you. What are you doing this for?”I was crushed.It broke through all my walls. To hear that from him, somebody I’ve looked up to my whole life, who always tells me what I need to hear, that’s when I had a pretty big realization about who I am, and who I want to be.I don’t want to say what that realization was. I just want to go out and show you.Clippers fans, thank you for always being the realest.— Blake"

Griffin said everything fans wanted to hear in this piece. It’s easy to talk the talk, but everything indicates he’s ready to walk the walk next season as well.

Blake said in a conversation on J.J. Redick’s podcast that he only took a week off after surgery this summer to return to training, adding that he didn’t feel like he even deserved a summer break.

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Blake Griffin truly sounds like he’s out to redeem himself and prove his talent and place with the Clippers, and the NBA needs to look out for what’s coming.