“Get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.” — Los Angeles Clippers
Babies and $173 million contracts are two things that don’t have much in common, except for the fact that when one comes into your life, it usually stays around for a while.
Neither was the case for Peggy or the Los Angeles Clippers.
Don’s ominous words of wisdom as his protege lay in a hospital bed were delivered with a look that we never saw on his face again. This was personal for him. He knew that sometimes in life, you had to move on from mistakes, no matter what — or who — was affected in the process.
Blake Griffin can understand. When LA gave him one of the all-time over the top free agent pitch meetings, complete with a fake jersey-retirement ceremony and a t-shirt comparing him to Abe Lincoln, Michael Jackson and Gandhi, among others, he had to figure that if he signed on the dotted line, he’d be around for a while.
Six months later, he was gone. It was a move the Clippers had to make and was lauded around the league for a reason. Like Peggy, LA had bigger fish to fry than 45-win purgatory for the next half-decade. In the summer, they’ll be armed with more cap space than any team in the history of the league. They’re a Lou Williams trade (easy) and a Danilo Gallinari salary dump (hard) away from being able to get three guys in the room and handing them each something close to a blank check. It was a no-brainer.
All they had to do was dump arguably the greatest player in franchise history like he was yesterday’s trash. But hey, business is business.