Klay Thompson Blake Griffin ‘Bull In A China Shop’: Context And Reactions From Players And Coaches (Photo: ESPN.com)
Two days ago on 95.7 The Game, a Bay Area radio show, Golden State Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson was asked by Ric Bucher the following question:
“Blake Griffin just pisses off a lot of guys. Why is that? He seems a good enough guy.”
“Yeah, he’s a good guy off the court, but it’s probably just he plays pretty physical,” Thompson replied, “He flops a little bit. He flails his arms around, so you might catch a random elbow or something and that doesn’t rub off too well on guys.
“He’s kind of like a bull in a china shop, kind of out of control sometimes and then you do see him flop sometimes, like, ‘How can a guy that big and strong flop that much?’ So yeah, I can see how he can get under people’s skin and be frustrating to play against.”
ESPN’s editors ran away with parts of that response, posting this on Twitter:
Warriors G Klay Thompson says Blake Griffin tends to flop a little bit & reminds him of a "bull in a china shop." » pic.twitter.com/I4ss8pJ12d
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 17, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
They also entitled Arash Markazi‘s report as “Klay Thompson calls out Blake Griffin“.
When asked yesterday about it, during media session at the Los Angeles Clippers practice facility, Griffin was asked about it by another ESPN reporter.
“Yeah, I heard about it,” Griffin said, “This isn’t my thing. I play basketball. I don’t want to get into a back and forth.
“I think we’re ready to play and it sounds like they are too,” Griffin added, “So it’s going to be exciting. It doesn’t matter what anybody says, anybody does, you just go out and play basketball.”
“I don’t even know about them comments,” Clippers point guard Chris Paul said.
When pressed further, Paul said, “I don’t know, man, I seriously don’t think about any of this stuff.”
In a separate radio interview with 95.7 The Game, David Lee pointed to the media over-hyping Thompson’s quote out of context.
“The media, they did it again today where they want to make this into something of a grudge match, ‘It’s gonna be crazy,’ and ‘It’s gonna be a heavyweight fight,” Lee said, “For us, no matter who we play in the first round, we’re a very competitive team and so are the Clippers. No matter who we’re playing against, this is the playoffs and this is a very competitive Western Conference.
“Everybody is ready to play right now and nobody wants to go home,” Lee added, “Do these teams have a past? Absolutely, but at this point, we’re worried about taking care of things we have to do to win games and there’s a lot of things we have to execute. We have to keep these guys out of transition, we have to keep from turning the ball over, and we gotta rebound as a team, so we have a lot of things to worry about far and above if guys are flopping and any past tiffs we have with these guys.”
Today at Clippers practice, Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group reported the following:
PLAYA VISTA — Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers responded Friday to comments on the radio Warriors guard Klay Thompson made about the Clippers’ Blake Griffin flopping.
.
“That’s Klay’s opinion,” Rivers said Friday. “I don’t really care, honestly. I just keep looking at what Blake’s done, so if he’s flopping, keep doing it because those numbers look awful good to me. So flop on. That’s the way I look at it. Whatever he’s done this year, I want him to keep doing exactly that.
.
“I think what’s happening is Blake’s kicking a lot of people’s butt, and they need something to say about him.”
On ESPN’s First Take, Skip Bayless didn’t agree that Thompson had ‘called out’ Griffin.
“That wasn’t prefight hype. That wasn’t trash talk,” Bayless said, “(Thompson) was just being honest. Didn’t it come across as just matter of fact? This is just what the guy (Griffin) is.”
Bayless then went on to debate with co-host Stephen A. Smith how it was “weird” how a physical player like Griffin would resort to flopping on defense.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
