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Blake Griffin was a cultural phenomenon for the LA Clippers, but not for the reason you might think

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A player’s impact on sports culture can best be measured by the moments that come to mind when his name is mentioned.

The best basketball players have them: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and so forth.

For LA Clippers forward Blake Griffin, who announced his retirement on Tuesday after 14 years, when his name is mentioned, many moments come to mind: “Lob City.” Dipping over the Kia. Blake’s face. Straight up baptizing Boston Celtics center Kendrick Perkins. Former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

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The Sterling saga that began in April 2014 when Sterling was recorded on tape saying that it bothered him that his mistress brought black men to “his games.” is a blip on Griffin’s profession radar. In 2009, he was the No. 1 overall pick by the Clippers. Winner of the Rookie of the Year award in 2011. In Griffin’s seven full seasons with the Clippers, they made the playoffs in all but one yr.

But Griffin and his teammates protest against Sterling before Game 4 of the first round playoff series against the Golden State Warriors following the public release of his comments, it is probably the most lasting legacy of an illustrious profession marked by the extraordinary highs and typical lows of talented superstars who never achieve off-season success.

LA Clippers forward Blake Griffin dunks during a game against the Charlotte Hornets on February 26, 2017 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

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Griffin’s partnership with guard Chris Paul made the Clippers relevant again and, more importantly, cool again. Between the Clippers’ move to Los Angeles in 1984 and Griffin’s election in 2009, the team made the playoffs only 4 times, never winning 50 or more games. From 2010-11 to 2016-17, Griffin’s last full season in Los Angeles, they won a minimum of 50 games five times.

The success of the Lob City era legitimized the Clippers franchise to the point where two things happened. After NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling from the league for life, the team was sold to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for $2 billion in May 2014, at the time the largest team sale in NBA history. Griffin also turned the recalcitrant Clippers into a place where All-Stars like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden would play. “We were the old Clippers,” Griffin wrote in The Players Tribune in 2014. “We were a joke in the eyes of the media back then. They just desired to laugh at us.”

You can argue his Hall of Fame bona fides all you want, but Griffin is a very important piece of NBA history. He was involved in a landmark moment in Los Angeles that influenced followers. “Dunk City” doesn’t have the same impact, does it?

As the game evolved — and as he got older and multiple lower-body injuries began to build up — Griffin did, too. When he entered the league in 2009, it was still a league of giants. He relied on his athleticism to play off the rim in addition to anyone in the league. Joining Griffin in warmups was the equivalent of throwing a fastball to Barry Bonds or facing Derrick Henry right at the line of scrimmage. It was a senseless endeavor.

But by the time Griffin was shockingly traded to the Detroit Pistons in 2018, there wasn’t much left in the knees. Like the remainder of the league, Griffin moved behind the three-point line. From the 2010-11 to 2016-17 season, Griffin shot 29.9% on 0.6 three-point attempts per game. From 2017-18 to 2022-23, he shot 33.4% on 4.7 attempts per game. He hasn’t grow to be Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, but he has grow to be a stretch-4 who can shoot reliably from deep. Many big players didn’t last in the league when the need for more three-point shooting arose. Griffin prospered.

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However, he achieved most of this under Sterling, whose teams normally recorded the lowest attendances in the league. Sterling is understood to have been prejudiced against black people, as illustrated by a federal housing discrimination lawsuit, for, amongst other things, his claim that his black tenants “smell and attract vermin.” Former team general manager and Hall of Fame player Elgin Baylor alleged in the lawsuit that Sterling told him he wanted a roster composed of “poor black boys from the South” and a white head coach. Sterling settled a housing discrimination lawsuit, and a jury ruled in his favor in Baylor’s suit.

LA Clippers forward Blake Griffin (left) receives congratulations from owner Donald Sterling (right) after winning the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest at Staples Center on February 19, 2011 in Los Angeles.

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

After the Clippers drafted Griffin, Sterling paraded him around a swanky party at his mansion as if Griffin was his best ox, continuously prodding his newest black worker to speak about his sexual prowess.

Griffin said he felt powerless at the time because he was only 20 years old and interacting together with his supervisor. The power imbalance is a harbinger of silence because Sterling has been allowed to operate this manner for a long time. “This guy was my boss” – Griffin – wrote in “The Players Tribune”. six months after the Sterling tape was revealed. “Ask yourself, how would you react if your boss did the same to you?”

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After Sterling’s tapes were released in 2014, in the middle of the team’s series against the Warriors, Griffin and his teammates had the weight of the world on their backs. The owner of the team they played for was caught saying racist things, but all the pressure appeared to be on him. They needed to boycott. They needed to demand a takeover of Sterling. They needed to take all the risk while the audience got to enjoy the reward of Sterling leaving.

Instead of refusing to play the fourth game of the series, the players took off their warmup shirts, turned them inside out to cover the team logo, and walked to midcourt to throw all of them into a pile. It wasn’t exactly on the front lines of the protest — Griffin said he was one among the players who advocated for a boycott of a Warriors game — but as I recall, it was one among the few times the team stood as much as team owner. Sterling would not survive what he said on those tapes, but swinging around like that in public still carries risks.

Five years before the release of Sterling’s tapes, Griffin was too afraid to ask his boss to stop touching and grabbing him at an all-white party, but here he was together with his teammates and principally told Sterling to kick rocks.

“We tried to decide what to do, but everyone said we should boycott, we shouldn’t play.” Griffin told ESPN in 2019. “The idea was: OK, we didn’t play for him in any respect. We didn’t get together before the jump ball and say, “Donald Sterling three-pointer!” One two Three!’ “

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The Clippers’ demonstration followed in the footsteps of the Miami Heat in hoodies following the 2012 murder of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, further illustrating that when NBA players talk, people have to listen. The Clippers’ response, in fact, resulted in Sterling’s ouster, but it also showed that players have some power in the NBA: eight years later, after an ESPN investigation found that then-Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver had made racist and sexist comments, players like the Los Angeles Laker LeBron James (“Misogyny, sexism and racism has no place in any workplace”) and Suns guard Paul (“I was and am horrified and disappointed by what I read”) expressed their dissatisfaction. Sarver sold the team in 2022.

“It was a sign of respect,” Griffin told ESPN in a 2019 article. “At the end of the day, that is what it’s all about. It’s respect for the human race. It was just a small incident that was in a position to spark something much greater and produce understanding to the issue.

“I always come back to the idea that it takes a very educated and thoughtful person to be able to hold a thought without accepting it.”

Martenzie Johnson is a senior author at Andscape. His favorite moment in the cinema is when Django asks, “Do you want to see something?”

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“What’s up with this guy?”

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The legend of NBA, Tim Duncan, recently got here out to the sport of San Antonio Spurs, not looking like a fan -remembered fan player.

The five -time NBA champion, once known for his close hair, is now swaying on the shoulders, frameting his face next to the total beard. These well -maintained dreadlocks completely transformed Hall of Famer into someone who is nearly not recognizable for individuals who watched them dominate within the league for 19 seasons.

The dramatic change of haircut didn’t happen overnight, and although his dreadlocks on the time were widely reported when he gave an acceptance speech through the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Naismith basketball in 2021, Duncan’s word caused an avalanche of headers with a “great fundamental evolution of favor.

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When Duncan appeared in San Antonio Frost Bank Center to observe his Spurs faced Golden State Warriors on March 30-when his old team lost 148-106-Svobodny fans were shocked with his recent appearance within the photo with their girlfriend, the star of reality Vanessa Macias, 44.

15 times All-Star Sat Courtside with Macias, who wore a full glam with loose curls and had proudly San Antonio equipment. Duncan selected a free outfit with a raglan -style shirt with camouflage sleeves, not team goods, perhaps symbolizing his evolution except that he’s a basketball icon.

Many jumped on X with the comments of shock to a brand new appearance when the fan asked: “What is happening to Tim Duncan?”

One person joked: “He is comfortable and relaxed … WTF.”

“Bro was not exactly the GQ model in the first years. Honestly looks more cold at 48 than 35 years.” one other person wrote.

Former NBA star, Tim Duncan, looks beyond recognition in the new Courtside photo with the girl (photo Jim Mcisaac/Getty Images)
Former NBA star, Tim Duncan, looks beyond recognition in the brand new Courtside photo with the girl (photo Jim Mcisaac/Getty Images)

However, not everyone appreciated the brand new hairstyle and a relaxed look.

Someone else Tweet“What’s up with this guy … He on a hippie journey? Will he start wandering in the desert?”

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Other he said, “Bro looks like he was disappearing at sea.”

One fan compared him to Lord Corlys “The Sea Snake” Velaryon from “Dom Dragon”.

After collecting $ 245 million of profession earnings and strengthening his heritage as one in all the biggest basketball strikers, Duncan clearly decided that retirement is a really perfect time to simply accept a totally recent aesthetics.

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This is just not the one change that the 48-year-old basketball icon has adopted of their life after the NBA. Now he practices mixed martial arts.

“When he entered the door, I saw that he was very hungry for learning martial arts, and his movement, his absorption of martial arts was simply phenomenal” revealed Jason Echols to the Bleacher report.

Echols is a coach of MMA Duncana, who has been training the basketball legend in Echols Fitness in San Antonio for over a decade.

Duncan’s physical transformation coincides with significant changes in his personal life over the past decade.

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His personal life has also evolved. After his divorce with his beloved from College, Amy Sherrill, with whom he shares two children, Duncan found love for Amazing Race Alum Macias. Together for over a decade, the couple divides his daughter, Quill – named after Peter Quilla Marvel (Guardians of the Galaxy), Sporting News Reports.

Macias announced the birth of his daughter in March 2017, calling her a “small soul changer”.

It seems that Macias has an amicable relationship with other children from his marriage, since the whole family was present in 2016, when the NBA star shirt was retired by his team.

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Despite leaving the sport, Duncan stays connected to Spurs. His short time as an assistant to the trainer in 2019-2020 was one in all the few times when he returned to the focus.

While his appearance has modified, his loyalty to Spurs didn’t. He still supports his former team, proving that he continues to be an impulse to live – only many more hair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjoz-vtwgiw

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Auburn Center Dylan Cardwell has patience with an awarded journey to the final fourth

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Atlanta – when he began to climb the ladder on his turn to cut the network, Auburn Center Dylan Cardwell suddenly stopped.

By examining the Orange Sea at State Farm Arena, Cardwell raised his right hand in the air and led the spontaneous crowd to the school’s battle school:

Cardwell ended the singing with a shout before the resumption of climbing, demanding a fraction of nylon on the occasion of the second journey of Auburn to the Final Four in the history of the program with a Sunday victory 70-64 in Michigan in the state of Michigan in the southern regional final, which, despite playing in Atlanta, felt like a game at Auburn’s house.

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“Super game, this is Auburn-Atlanta,” said Cardwell later with a crowd of Pro-Auburn, which had a small problem to make two hours to Atlanta. “I can’t imagine how difficult it is to play in this environment. It was great.”

MVP Auburna Regional was Johni Broome, who shook nasty autumn in the middle of the second half, scoring 25 points and win 14 rebounds to win the Top Player award.

The rising regional star was Tahaad PettiFord, the first yr guard who was the only other Auburn player in double forms (10). Despite the descent from the bench in all matches this season, PettiFord represents the way forward for the team (if he decides to stay in college, which might be difficult to scout NBA will definitely drool due to his athleticism and confidence).

But when the tigers are preparing to travel to San Antonio next weekend for the last 4 with 4 seeds No. 1 for the second time in history, Cardwell – the best player in Auburn basketball history – can simply represent the heart and soul of the team.

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“Dylan Cardwell blows everyone who is there,” said coach Auburn Bruce Pearl about August, Georgia, from plus/minus the team for 3 easy matches before the Sunday regional final. “You can’t look at the statistics sheet and think that he will lead in Plus-Minus and does it all the time.”

Tre Holloman (on the right) Guard of State Michigan is trying to shoot at the Auburn Center Dylan Cardwell (on the left) during the first half in the southern regional finals of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament at the State Farm Arena on March 30 in Atlanta.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

A fast take a look at Cardwell’s statistics from Sunday is not going to blow you up: he had five points, six rebounds and made only considered one of 4 attempts at free kicks (after the only brand, Cardwell pushed each fingers into the air and shouted “thank you”). But Cardwell played a key role in maintaining Auburn’s defense when Broome had to leave the game with 10:37 after a tough landing on the right elbow.

“When Johni left, I immediately thought about Chaney (Johnson) and Dylan and none of them got into bad trouble,” said Pearl. “Chaney and Dylan can of course do what should be done in a defensive end and reflection. When Johnni left, we hung there and hindered the capture of Michigan.”

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Auburn led 50-40 when Broome left the game. When Cardwell and Chaney hold the interior, there have been 10 points when Broome returned from the cloakroom and immediately checked in in the game.

“CHaney and Dylan can of course do what should be done on defensive and reflection,” said Pearl. “When Johni left, we hung there. We made it difficult to Michigan.”

Cardwell played his role as considered one of the principal defensive elements for tigers, which is barely suitable for a man who got here to Auburn in 2020, a yr after the team’s last journey to the final 4. While Cardwell was a rotation guy from the 1st day, he began only two matches before this season – his fifth in Auburn.

Modest medium Cardwell careers (4.2 points and three.8 rebounds per match inside five seasons) Do not likely tell the stories of considered one of the most influential players in the team that remained near the summit of national rankings throughout the season.

“The boards dominate, he is the best defender on the floor and does not overturn basketball,” said Pearl about Cardwell. “So he can’t shoot at a jump, but intends to hand over the ball to some guys who can shoot.”

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And Cardwell plays with the level of intensity and swagger, who denies the indisputable fact that he’s a person who’s wealthy who’s on the dean’s list and 3 times made Academic Honor Scena.

Centrum Auburn Dylan Cardwell goes to Dunk against Michigan State in State Farm Arena on March 30 in Atlanta.

Grant Halverson/NCAA photos via ghetto images

Pearl Cardwell Cardwell for sticking to the program, saying that the introduction of Walker Kessler transfers (from North Carolina in 2021) and Broome (from the state of Morehead in 2022) were movements that refused Kardwell to start.

“We brought him at the end of the season and said:” Look, if Johni returns, two things must occur, “said Pearl. “Or you have got to leave because he just isn’t fair to play after him again, you deserve more. Or I’ll start two in each game should you stay.” “

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Cardwell award for stay: Journey to the final 4.

It was only right that when the team left the State Farm Arena Court after cutting out the network, Cardwell took the regional championship trophy to the cloakroom.

“In Auburn, 2019 is a year that everyone is talking about,” said Cardwell in the victorious cloakroom, squeezing this trophy. “They are the basis of this program. I am glad that now my name can now be included in the history of Auburn.”

Jerry Bembry is a senior author in andcape. His positions on the wish list include Serenade through Lizz Wright and watching Knicks play a major NBA game in June.

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There is less March chaos of madness, with fewer teams and lessons

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With fewer teams, games and fans in the town, there is much less chaos in NCAA tournament.

The city organizes women’s tournament games within the Spokane Arena. The best general UCLA grain and its 6-meter ALL-America Lauren Betts center belonged to eight teams in the town.

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Located in Eastern Washington, about 100 miles south of the border from Canada, it is dug a medium -sized city, which is a bit unique since it is a frequent March host of madness. The men’s tournament included games in Spokane six times since 2003. The tournament for ladies had matches in the world 4 times and seven times throughout the town.

“Spokane has a long history of the organization of the championship,” said Ashley Blake, general director of Spokane Sports, a regional sports committee. “Spokane is a city that appears in sport. And this tournament is not really an exception. So having this reputation and experience in our city is really a catalyst for which these tournaments choose Spokane.”

But it didn’t all the time go easily. This area drew unwanted attention last 12 months, when the proper storm of sporting events took place, which at the identical time got here right down to the town. There were matches of the Men’s and Youth Volleyball Tournament with over 700 young players.

In addition, Gonzagi women also provided a spot within the tournament. And as the best grain, Zags received early rounds as a number, playing on the McCarthey Athletic Center-Z school, only just a few days.

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For all these teams, athletes and fans in the town at the identical time there was an absence of appropriate hotel rooms. NCAA rules dictate team hotels must meet minimal standards and have appropriate amenities.

As a result, some women’s teams were in hotels abroad in Idaho, over half-hour of driving from the Spokane center, and this area turned out to be an inflammatory point for controversy.

Players for the Utah women’s team went to team dinner at Coeur d’Alene in Idaho, when the motive force of the van flying the confederation flag The racist language shouted on them. Utes was moved from the hotel the following day.

“We had several cases of racial crimes from hatred for our program and (it was) extremely annoying to us all,” said the coach of women-Tututa, Lynne Roberts. Roberts is now the coach of La Sparks of WNBA. “In our world, in athletics and in university institutions, it is shocking. There is so much diversity in the university campus, so you are simply not exposed to it.”

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Idaho authorities revealed after a two-month investigation that an 18-year-old man confessed to the use of a racial insult, but lawyer Coeur D ‘Alene City he refused to complain about hate crimes.

This 12 months is very different. Without tournament games planned by men, this problem is largely debatable. But the sports committee said that it learned about higher ways of dealing with crowding in the longer term. The next one is certain to prepare men’s games in 2027.

“I think that the biggest thing is to recognize what happened. This is a reminder of this responsibility that we all share, and making sure that athletes feel supported, respected and safe when they come here to compete,” Blake said.

Paige Bueckers, the Connecticut star, was delighted with the sale of the gang, which expected Sweet 16 a match with Oklahom on Saturday.

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Buckkers also took part in the highschool within the USA Basketball in Spokane, who won the nickname Hooptown for a lot of NCAA tournament matches, each Gonzaga teams and the annual summer tournament 3 to three.

“It means everything for us to be able to travel around the country and get support,” she said. “This is a great basketball community. They love basketball here, love women’s basketball, so it will be exciting.”

In combination with this 12 months’s tournaments, the town has began the “Spokane Champions Women in Sports” campaign and organizes several events that help “make sure that our bands, fans and our media when they come here, see and feel the support of our community.”

The star of the USC Juju Watkins falls, and Trojans lose Mississippi State in March madness

And this doesn’t end with March Madness.

“Immediately after this tournament, we fall into the citizens of the US women Wrestling, which will have about 2,000 athletes, their viewers and their families who will come,” said Blake. “That’s why we really use this platform to start and start telling a story, which means sports tourism for Spokane, as well as on the side of women.”

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This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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