LA Clippers star forward Blake Griffin nabbed the October GQ cover and inside Griffin teaches shares his style sense in a photo layout titled “Let Blake Griffin Show You How To Look Great in Your 20s.” Which I guess you can read if you happen to be past your 20’s without it being weird. Plus he has a great interview with Zach Baron where they discuss a mountain of topics including Donald Sterling, LeBron James, being a father, the playoffs, his brother and much, much, more. Here’s a taste of some of the answers Griffin provided during the interview.
GQ: In retrospect, this Clippers thing really worked out for you, locale-wise.
BG: Absolutely. And it’s funny, because when the Clippers had the first pick and they announced that they were gonna draft me, everybody was like, “Uh, you probably should ask not to get drafted. Try to go somewhere else.” And I was like, “You know what? Let’s just see.” And honestly, it wasn’t even about L.A., because I hadn’t been to L.A. at the time. I thought, “Okay, whatever, Beverly Hills Cop.” All I wanted to do was play basketball.
GQ: Were you aware of Donald Sterling’s reputation then?
BG: When the draft lottery came out and the Clippers said they were gonna draft me, I went to Google to find out more about the Clippers, because I didn’t know a lot. And I was like, “Okay, team owned by Donald Sterling.” So then I typed in “Donald Sterling” in Google, and the first thing that pops up is “Donald Sterling racist.” And I was like, “Whoa!” So obviously I explored that, read a whole bunch of articles, read the deposition at one of his court cases. Which was awesome, if you ever have time to read some of the depositions. [laughs]
GQ: Is it true that he [Donald Sterling] would bring women in to the locker room to watch players shower?
BG: He would bring them in the locker room. Guys would be in there. The showers are kind of elsewhere. I don’t think they would really go back there. But he would bring people in the locker room while we were just in towels. One year he came in and led a “hip hip hooray” chant and held my arm up in the air. Then he went to another teammate and did the same thing. Guys just started scattering as fast as possible. [laughs]
GQ: You got to meet Will Ferrell, who is one of your heroes, right?
BG: Yeah, I did. That was awesome. I found that kind of funny, though, because we were shooting a Funny or Die thing at his house, and I pulled up to his house, and every word he was saying I was hanging on, waiting for an awesome punch line, you know? Like waiting for everything to be a joke. And he’d be like, “So how’s your summer going? Is your brother still playing basketball?” I was just always waiting. Not that he wasn’t funny. But I walked away thinking I probably looked like an idiot, just smiling at him, waiting for something awesome to happen.
Check out the rest of the interview at GQ.com.
