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Blake Griffin took inspiration from two of the hardest-working people he knew
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- Blake Griffin took inspiration from two of the hardest-working people he knew
(© Raj Mehta-Imagn Images)
When Blake Griffin came into the league in 2009, he was one of the most hyped prospects we've ever seen enter the NBA. However, in reality, that was mostly because of his god-given athletic ability and the fact that his highlight-reel dunks were starting to go viral. Social media booming helped that trend as well.
Sadly for Griffin, very quickly, NBA teams figured they could stop him very easily in a half-court set. When you didn't let him get easy buckets in transition, all Griffin had in his bag when he got the ball in the low post was his quick first step to the right, a spin move from left to right that was easily stopped either by the defender's anticipation or a double-team by the help defender. As long as you didn't let him get close to the rim, a lot of Griffin's attempts ended up as some wild prayers over opposing bigs.
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Outside the paint, he couldn't hit the ocean except for a few lucky shots. You can see that in his shooting percentages early in his career, especially from the three-point line. For years, his three-point shot percentage was mostly in the 20s, but Griffin stuck to it.
Griffin was the epitome of hard work
He worked very hard, firstly adding a nice pick-and-pop game with Chris Paul , where he knocked down top-of-the-key midrange shots consistently. Little by little, as the NBA shifted to positionless basketball and everybody on the floor being able to shoot, Griffin became a three-point marksman. It became a staple of his game and he was arguably one of the top five shooting power forwards at one point.
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It didn't happen overnight.
Years of hard work in the gym made that happen. It was obvious Griffin was not a natural shooter; you could see that by his shooting motion. Really talented shooters shoot effortlessly; it was very obvious that Griffin was trying very hard to keep his shooting mechanics under control every time he shot the ball. However, it was effective, even though it didn't look pretty. His hard work made it happen.
That work ethic is what Blake always had in him and didn't have to search in other places to find it. As a kid, all he had to do was look in his household.
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"My parents, I've always said, are two of the hardest-working people I know. My dad, I used to watch him get up at 7 a.m. and he taught and coached in high school, which is kind of a thankless job. So he would be gone all day teaching, coaching, then come home and he had a second job," Griffin said on JJ Redick 's podcast in 2017.
"My parents had a small trophy company we ran out of the back of our house, so I'd watch him come home 8 o'clock at night, eat dinner really quick and then work until 2 o'clock in the morning every single day for most of my childhood, just to provide for my brother and I and our family. "
" My mom was the same way, tireless work ethic; my brother was the exact same way. When he started getting recruited, I watched him get serious about basketball. He'd go to the gym and spend four hours in there and I just thought that's what I was supposed to do," he concluded.
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Blake is an inspiration
Now, we can do a whole different piece about Griffin's unfulfilled expectations with the Los Angeles Clippers and how it's a failure that those teams never won a championship. However, this story is not about that.
This is a story about a guy who worked hard his entire career in order to improve and in order to keep up with the evolution of basketball and was really successful in doing so. At one point, he was even considered one of the best players in the NBA.
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How many talented guys enter the league and are basically the same players in year five that they've been in year one? Numerous.
Blake was not that.
He was an inspiration to always try your hardest to keep up with the changes around you.
If you do that, if you give it your all to improve as much as you can, you can live with whatever results you might get.
And Griffin can certainly live with his.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Dec 22, 2025, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
