All Sooners

Report: Blake Griffin signs with the Nets

After fans wished for years that he could play with Kevin Durant in Oklahoma City, Griffin now gets to play with KD in Brooklyn

John E. Hoover

It wasn’t supposed to be go down quite like this, but Blake Griffin finally gets to play with Kevin Durant.

According to a report from NBA insider Shams Charania of The Athletic, Griffin, the Oklahoma City native and former Oklahoma Sooner, will sign with the Brooklyn Nets, where he will finally get to play with the longtime Oklahoma City Thunder star.

Sooner Nation and a lot of Thunder Fans always pulled for OKC to sign Griffin, who grew up in Oklahoma and played for the Sooners for two seasons from 2007-09 and was the national player of the year in 2009.

Griffin, 31, has played 12 NBA seasons (eight for the Los Angeles Clippers, four for the Detroit Pistons) and has averaged 21.4 points, 8.7 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game.

Blake Griffin and Kevin Durant
Blake Griffin and Kevin Durant / Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports

Griffin, a six-time NBA All-Star and the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2009 (he missed all of the 2009-10 season with a knee injury), agreed to a contract buyout with the Pistons and became a free agent on Friday.

There may still be work to do if Griffin is going to actually play with Durant. Both  have missed extended time in recent years due to injury. Griffin has been inactive 16 games this season as the Pistons had hoped to find a trade partner for him and his $36.6 million contract. Durant has missed 18 games this season, including the last nine with a hamstring injury.

It was always a pipe dream for Griffin to land with the Thunder, especially when Durant was on the payroll there with Russell Westbrook, James Harden and others.

But being a local product who played high school ball at Oklahoma Christian School, it was always on the wish list of a lot of area basketball fans, particularly Sooner Nation, who reveled in Griffin’s high-flying, almost nightly double-doubles with the Sooners.

Griffin averaged 23.5 points per game for the Pistons in 2018-19 and made his last All-Star Game. Since then, his offensive productivity has dropped to 15.5 points per game last season (he played in just 18 games) and 12.3 points per game this season (20 games).

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.