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Dime Q&A: Blake Griffin On His Jordan Collection & Whether He Could Play In The NFL

Dime: What have you been doing to prepare for the upcoming season?
BG: Really just focusing a lot on my offseason workouts. I’ve been doing a lot of shooting stuff. Sitting down with our new coaching staff and understanding where my shots and where my offense is will come from. We’ve also been doing some defensive stuff. Everything is different now. Our coverages, our schemes and rotations are all different. So just kind of relearning all that and just trying to be as prepared as possible.

Dime: Are you excited to play for Coach Rivers next season?
BG: Oh yeah I’m very excited. I’m just excited for this season in general. We’ve got some new teammates and guys that have taken less money just to be a part of the team. That’s the ultimate sacrifice so when guys are doing that it just makes you really appreciate your teammates. So I’m just really looking forward to what we can put together with coach Rivers and our new team and really just hit the ground running. I’m excited about what we can accomplish together.

Dime: Do you think the playing style is going to change a lot under Coach Rivers?
BG: It’ll be different. I mean obviously a lot of our main pieces are still the same but I think his offense will be completely different. He’s got a great offensive mind and he has some great ideas on how to keep things fresh and not allow us to get stagnant on offense. And I think the biggest change you’ll see is defensively.

Jaime Canterbury, Dime Magazine

og15 wrote:I like that the are working on defensive stuff in the off-season. Really loving the attention to detail and overall cohesiveness the coaching staff is showing with working with Blake this off-season. I hope similar things are happening with DJ. Really expecting a lot of good things from the team this year, and you know I always love to hear about defense improving.

I think before Blake was kind of doing whatever happened offensively, but now Doc and the rest are trying to focus his game to maximize the spots on the floor he's strongest and most effective in. Then when those are taken away you can go to other moves, go to another player, or draw defenders and create for others. I'm really interested to see how it plays out and what his shooting looks like. I mean we still have a couple of weeks until training camp, so still adequate time for him to fine tune things.

Random, but bye, if Kareem wants someone to work with during the season, he can always take DJ under his wing