Blake Griffin on The Champs podcast (NSFW)

[mkwest]

The Champs with Neal Brennan, Moshe Kasher, DJ Doggpound

Blake Griffin Returns

Original Champ and NBA All-Star Blake Griffin makes his triumphant return to discuss the Clippers season, his knees, the things he needs to do to become a complete player, and the origin of the term "Lob City."

Interview

- Talked about toughness of Memphis series
- Strained nerve in knee against Grizzlies, unrelated to Olympic training camp injury (torn meniscus)
- He's walking fine now.
- Players are tested for Street Drugs and PEDs during the season, only PEDs during the offseason
- He's back on the court
- He does in fact own a Kia Optima
- He talks about people calling him up to ask for things.
- Discusses Chryo-therapy
- Driven by competive spirit to be the best
- Pain of losing is worse than the joy of winning
- Prefers to read the negative comments/critiques about his performance. All he can do is dunk, he'll never be anything without a jumpshot, etc.
- He was sad to see Kaman, Gordon and Aminu be traded
- Blake has hired a shooting coach who he works with everyday. He's working to change his mechanics. He was making good progress before getting injured.

[og15]

I actually passively listened to this while doing other stuff. Blake drives a Kia Optima, lol

I liked their little how the media would spin him saying Paul is better than Nash. "Blake Griffin says cross town rival Steve Nash is nothing", lol

Also, lol @ Blake explaining how they were just mocking how people would react to the trade with "Lob City", and everyone, including me thought it was a real reaction. He's like he hated that because he felt it would be similar to the Miami "not one, not two etc" stuff,mans he's mentioned how people started saying stuff like "they need to be less worried about Lob City, and more worried about defense city".

That's really interesting to know. Guy probably doesn't really like the Lob City phrase even, and then on of the guys makes a "Sob City" joke about how Kaman was traded and how Blake felt

Blake mentioned that in the gym he can make 20 FT's and if he takes 100, he can make about 85, but in games, not so great. That is interesting to know. Told the story about the guy who did one of those make a layup, make a FT, etc contests, and said in the mic "hey Blake, this is how you make a free throw"', then he made his layup, but then missed all his FT's until the time expired. Blake was like "now you know how I feel".

[DangerCurtis]

This was a really funny, insightful, and great podcast.

I'm just paraphrasing but...

"When I'm in the gym by myself, I can make like 85 out of 100 freethrows. That's like 85%. But when I'm on the court I can only make about 60 or 50%."

Response...

"Yeah that's like me. As a comedian, when I rehearse my jokes bymyself I make myself laugh about 85% of the time, but when I'm on stage, it's only about 20 or 30% of the time."

Highly recommend everyone to listen to this podcast.

[BennyBeFly]

incredible podcast. Listened to the entire thing on my commute to work today, put me in a great joking mood. Really entertaining and candid interview.

[Don Tommy]

If I remember right, Shaq used to be the same way, according to coaches. Said he could knock them down all day long in the gym but during game time, they just stopped going in. I might not be remembering who it was about right, cause I also remember Shaq saying his hands were too big to shoot free throws, but he is not the first person to have this problem.
Would any of you think less of him if he shot his FTs underhand?

[aaa]

Wow, what a great podcast. Really, this is a must listen. I'm not even a clippers fan, just a Griffin fan, and this podcast was a delight to listen to. Thanks for the link, real good stuff.

[1Shooter]

That was a great podcast to listen to.
A lot of people should listen to it, especially those for some reason who thinks Griffin doesn't have a personality.

[TheNewEra]

great post good listen

[mkwest]

Blake Griffin's gym rat summer

Luckily, it seems Griffin hasn’t closed up just yet. In July he revisited The Champs, which is hosted by comedians Neal Brennan, Moshe Kasher and DJ Douggpound, for what was one of the best interviews with a current star I've ever heard.

Beware, the language can get pretty vulgar. Definitely not safe for work.

Here’s one of my favorite moments, in which Griffin describes his shooting woes:

Griffin: I hired a shooting coach. I work with him every single day.

Champs: What do you do?

Griffin: Change the mechanics a little bit, streamline it kind of. And hopefully that helps.

Champs: You said something interesting, which was that you were shooting as you were falling down. You were turning everything into like, a fadeaway kind of.

Griffin: Yea kind of a fadeaway or a push-arm shot. Or bring it behind my head -- slightly. Like if you watched me shoot you wouldn’t be like, “That’s a terrible shot.” It was decent, I guess. But now I’ve just kind of streamlined it. But I’ve still got a lot of work to do.

Champs: That’s exciting, do you feel improvement from it already?

Griffin: Yea, absolutely. It took a little bit but you finally turn a corner to where you’re just like, “Ah! Yes!”

Griffin also talks about how incredibly physical the first-round series against the Grizzlies was, why Lob City was an off-the-cuff joke and not a mantra, his knee injury, and how he handles the people from his past who come back looking for money.

But what I love about the excerpt above is that it really underscores the importance of serious offseason workouts. It’s difficult for players to become better shooters over the course of a season. Not only is practice time scarce, but, as Griffin describes, really rebuilding shooting mechanics involves some significant growing pains. Intentionally going into a deeper slump is not a viable option, especially for a player who, like Griffin, carries so much of the scoring load for his team.

Beckley Mason, ESPN

[og15]

It is true that changing your form during the season doesn't work. When you are playing games you revert back to what is comfortable, so even if you are working, it is hard to change. In addition, like mentioned, there are growing pains. I remember when I first decided to improve my shot, I was 16, and the first month of shooting drills was awful. I had to remember that it wasn't about making or missing but about muscle memory. I also took a break from pick up games so that I wouldn't be in situations where I'm thinking about scoring as opposed to shooting properly.

I think the first week I was shooting like 20% or worse on open shots. Of course it later worked out and I became a really good shooter down the road until injuries decided to get me and I kinda changed up how I shot because of pain. Never been the same level shooter since then, but maybe I'll put in some work sometime to get back there.

I do understand the situation with Blake though.

[mkwest]

Some of you guys have probably seen this. Blake's on-court impact

It is true that changing your form during the season doesn't work. When you are playing games you revert back to what is comfortable, so even if you are working, it is hard to change. In addition, like mentioned, there are growing pains. I remember when I first decided to improve my shot, I was 16, and the first month of shooting drills was awful. I had to remember that it wasn't about making or missing but about muscle memory. I also took a break from pick up games so that I wouldn't be in situations where I'm thinking about scoring as opposed to shooting properly.

I think the first week I was shooting like 20% or worse on open shots. Of course it later worked out and I became a really good shooter down the road until injuries decided to get me and I kinda changed up how I shot because of pain. Never been the same level shooter since then, but maybe I'll put in some work sometime to get back there.

I do understand the situation with Blake though.

The type of season that we had coupled with the lack of a true offseason, could be a good thing for some of younger players. There was more time off than usual, but were they really making the individual improvement that they should have been making? They're each tinkering on something to elevate their games, but have the proper time and guidance to allow those adjustments to become more instinctual. In other words, there's more time to try to form good habits rather than falling back into old ones.

What kind of injuries did you have?

[og15]

Landed on someones foot and had ankle injury that took me out for a few months. I had previously fractured that ankle, and injured the other one a few times too (maybe I had bad shoes). Took a while to fully heal where I wasn't wearing my brace. Was frequently getting ankle injuries before that, but after about 2 years of the brace, surprisingly I don't anymore, not sure what happened, but they somehow got stronger.

Later on some knee issue that I still continue to have an haven't really taken the time to fully diagnose it. Not related to a specific injury, at least I dont think so, but probably wear and tear. Get sharp pains when making quick stops (eg: pull up jumpshot like Westrbook would do), and in some other scenarios mainly related to planting. It is mainly in my right knee. It's survivable enough that I can still play, sometimes a knee strap helps, sometimes it doesn't. Need to get an MRI, but I have been lazy about it since I don't play as often anymore.