Blake Griffin Debunks Theory Regarding A ‘Mutual Hatred’ Between Him And Chris Paul

Towards the end of the Los Angeles Clippers’ “Lob City” era, players on the team started resenting each other. Hence, with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin not embracing each other following their departure from the LA side, the media made the fans assume that the two former teammates were beefing. However, Griffin has come out and debunked the myth.

Blake Griffin was invited to FanDuel’s Run It Back podcast to have a conversation with the panel–Shams Charania, Lou Williams, Chandler Parsons, and Michelle Beadle. During the episode, the 14-year veteran was asked to comment on his relationship with Chris Paul. Answering Beadle’s controversial question, Blake didn’t hesitate in calling not the media for creating this feud between the players.

“You watching clips, you see something, you run with it, the story gets clicks, it’s great… When we all left our separate ways–first time I played against JJ we got into it, first time I played CP we got into it. The nature of bringing people that are uber-competitive. Even if they played together for a long time and now they going against each other, you’re still on the other team,” Griffin claimed.

In reality, once the game concludes, the former teammates share mutual respect and express admiration for each other. However, in order to get more views, the media outlets run with the false “hatred” narrative.

“It’s all love after the game. But, during the game no… It’s a narrative, and what’s the better story—’Oh these guys hate each other’ or ‘yeah they’re great guys and they all get along, they just didn’t win.’. That’s not a story,” Griffin concluded.

While Griffin urges the media that there was no feud between him and Chris Paul, the latter’s actions in the 2017-2018 season say otherwise. A year after CP3 parted ways with the Clippers, following the 15^th January 2018 chipy contest, he led his Houston Rockets teammates to storm into the home team’s locker room.

At first, reports claimed that a scuffle broke out in the locker room. However, it was eventually cleared up that the LAPD authorities intervened and managed the situation.

Despite this infamous “Tunnel Gate” incident, the Point God still often expresses his love for Blake Griffin.

Chris Paul spoke about appreciating Blake Griffin after parting ways with the Clippers

Chris Paul and Blake Griffin did have their set of problems. But it isn’t known whether or not their failing relationship was a reason behind the former parting ways with the Los Angeles Clippers. After leaving the LA side, Paul wasn’t relieved. Instead, he simply began appreciating the forward even more.

“It’s seriously one of those things you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. I think about it at times. And me and Blake absolutely had our issues here and there and whatnot, but I actually appreciated Blake probably a lot more after I left. And then, especially once he started shooting threes, I was like: ‘God dang. Cash’,” Paul said on the All The Smoke podcast.

The Chris Paul-Blake Griffin duo was one of the most lethal one-two punches in the early 2010s. Even though the pair wasn’t able to lift the Larry O’Brien trophy even once, they did manage to advance to the postseason on six straight occasions. Their chemistry was off the charts.

Out of 4023 assists dished out by Chris Paul in his stint with the California side, 1157 (28.7%), per Sky Sports, of those were to Blake Griffin – the most assists he’s dished out to any of his teammates.

Apart from CP and Griffin leading the pack, the “Lob City” team did have some capable role players in DeAndre Jordan, JJ Reddick, and Jamal Crawford, among others. While they would often perform well in the regular season, come postseason time, injuries wouldn’t allow them to make it past the Western Conference Semifinals.