Tag: Blake Griffin

Sooners legend Blake Griffin officially announces retirement

Blake Griffin, a generational athlete and former Oklahoma Sooner announced his retirement after a 14-year NBA career.

An Oklahoma basketball legend called it a career on Tuesday. Sooners basketball legend Blake Griffin announced his retirement in a post he shared via social media on Tuesday morning.

Griffin ended his NBA career after 14 years. The bulk of his career came as a member of the Los Angeles Clippers after he was drafted in 2009 as the first overall pick. He also spent time with the Detroit Pistons, Brooklyn Nets, and Boston Celtics.

Griffin retired as a six-time NBA All-Star, three-time All-NBA Second Team, two-time All-NBA Third Team, and the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2009.

 

As a high schooler from Oklahoma City, Griffin won multiple state championships. He signed with the Sooners and went on to earn selections on the Big 12 All-Rookie Team and to the first-team All-Big 12 after posting 14.7 points and 9.1 rebounds and ranking ninth in scoring, fourth in rebounding, and third in field goal percentage in the Big 12 Conference.

Instead of bolting for the impending NBA Draft, he stayed for one more year. He cemented his status as an Oklahoma basketball legend. During his sophomore season, he became the first player in Big 12 history to record back-to-back games of at least 20 points and 20 rebounds. He dropped 40 points and 23 rebounds against Texas Tech, becoming the only player in Big 12 history and the third player in the history of the University of Oklahoma men’s basketball program to record at least 40 points and 20 rebounds in a game, joining [autotag]Wayman Tisdale[/autotag] and [autotag]Alvan Adams[/autotag].

He led Oklahoma to a regional final that saw them lose to eventual national champion UNC. That year, Griffin averaged 22.7 points, 14.4 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game during the regular season and earned All-American first team honors. He also swept every major player of the year award. He’s the only Sooner to win the Naismith Award, Oscar Robertson Trophy, Adolph Rupp Trophy, John Wooden Award, and the Associated Press Player of the Year in the same season.

Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Bryant on Twitter @thatmanbryant.

What will the Celtics do with the team’s open roster spot?

What should the Celtics do with the team’s open roster spot?

At the time of this writing, the Boston Celtics still have an open roster spot, and could look to add a player ahead of the playoffs. This could mean signing a free agent or elevating one of the team’s current two-way contracts to a full-time deal, which would make said player eligible for the postseason. One such player is Neemias Queta.

This big man has split time between Boston and Portland, suiting up for the G-League affiliate Maine Celtics. He’s appeared in 26 games NBA games and has been an added boost for head coach Joe Mazzulla’s front court depth. Likewise, the Celtics front office could look to add a free agent player, with familiar faces like Blake Griffin proving a popular suggestion among fans and media.

In a panel discussion with a number of Celtics reporters, the “How Bout Them Celtics!” podcast discussed Boston’s open roster spot in a new segment called Celts of the Roundtable. Enjoy, via YouTube.

If you enjoy this pod, check out more from the “How Bout Them Celtics,” “First to the Floor,” and the many other New England sports podcasts available on the CLNS Media network.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

[lawrence-auto-related count=5 category=590969556]

Buddy Hield and Trae Young top 10 college guards of the last decade per Jon Rothstein

Buddy Hield and Trae Young had special careers in Norman which ended with them as top 10 guards of the last decade.

The Oklahoma Sooners have been spoiled with some special talent on the hardwood. Whether it was Alvin Adams, Stacey King, Wayman Tisdale, Mookie Blaylock, Ryan Minor or the newer era with guys like [autotag]Blake Griffin[/autotag], [autotag]Buddy Hield[/autotag] and [autotag]Trae Young[/autotag].

Hield and Young had two of the better individual seasons I’ve seen any college basketball player have. Hield’s senior season was remarkable to watch. He averaged 25 points, 5.7 rebounds on 50.1% from the field and 45.7% from 3. He’s the only player I’ve ever seen that when he shot a three it felt like it was going in every time. It’s what led to him winning several national awards.

Young’s season was special as well. I remember watching him play basketball at the YMCA in Norman when he was in junior high. You could tell then he’d be special but I never thought he’d be that special. In his lone season in Norman, he led the nation in points (27.4) and assists (8.7) per game which had never been done before.

More: Oklahoma men’s basketball all-time roster: Sooner Legends

Those special seasons helped land both on CBSSports’ Jon Rothstein’s top 10 list of best college guards in the last decade.

Now, it says it is in no particular order so who knows who is first and who is 10th. It’s also a great list with a lot of great guards. Still, you can’t convince me any of those guys are better than Hield. That’s how special that season was.

It helped get Oklahoma back into the Final Four and although that didn’t turn out how Sooner fans would have wanted, it was one fun ride.

Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Jaron on Twitter @JaronSpor.

‘The atmosphere was great’: Sooner fans show out for their ranked squad

Porter Moser might be bringing the juice back to the basketball program.

Attendance has long been an issue at basketball games at the University of Oklahoma. Unless the Oklahoma Sooners have a top-tier team and are playing a top-tier opponent, the fans rarely show up. That includes the student section.

In came Porter Moser. Moser has made a concerted effort to get students to the games. But what he found out, it doesn’t matter how much you plead for fans to come if you don’t have a winning team.

Let’s face it, Oklahoma is a football school. If you want to grab their attention, you need to put out a good product like softball has done. Earlier in the season, fans still rarely came. But the Sooners kept winning. Now, they are 8-0 and a top 25 team in the country.

So, come Tuesday, the fans were there. 7,234 of them were in attendance. They also made themselves felt several times during the game.

Milos Uzan and Javian McCollum talked about fan support.

“The atmosphere was great,” Uzan said. “The last four minutes, I saw everybody turn their lights off. I knew we had to take this home. I feel like in an environment like this, the more we keep winning, the more fans keep coming, and exciting things will happen.”

“It’s great playing at home and always having a huge fan base like that, being noisy for us, that helps us win the game,” McCollum said. “It helps tremendously. And hopefully, as the season goes on we keep building, and more people will come out and support us.”

If you haven’t gone out to watch this team yet, you need to. No, they don’t have the huge star like [autotag]Blake Griffin[/autotag], [autotag]Buddy Hield[/autotag] or [autotag]Trae Young[/autotag] but man they are a fun team to watch.

Their next game is against the Arkansas Razorbacks, and while it’s not a home game, it is being played in Tulsa, Okla. The Sooners have faced the Razorbacks several times in the past, and every time, it sounds more like an Arkansas home game than a Sooner home game. Time to change that this season.

Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Jaron on Twitter @JaronSpor.

Five feasible frontcourt fixes for the Boston Celtics to consider

The murmur of analysts suggesting the Celtics ought to make a change is growing louder.

The Boston Celtics have been one of the best teams in the NBA early in the league’s 2023-24 season, but some old, familiar faults have resurfaced in the Celtics’ play of late, enough to concern fans even if the recurring issues are lesser of a problem than they have been in seasons past.

Issues with ball movement, concerns about the reliability of the help off the bench, smaller guards and limited bigs who struggle to defend certain kinds of opponents, the starters playing down to their competition and struggling against longer, more physical ball clubs all have come back to bite the Celtics in the handful of losses Boston has logged to date.

And with Dec. 15 soon to arrive and the flood of players who signed new deals over the summer able to be traded, the murmur of analysts suggesting the Celtics ought to make a change to help address some of these issues is growing louder.

Celtics identified as ideal landing spots for two unsigned free agents

Both are indeed great fits for Boston in a vacuum, age and health concerns aside.

The Boston Celtics are currently viewed by at least one NBA analyst as the ideal landing spots for a pair of still-unsigned free agents of some renown. In a recent article examining potential signings for such players still without an NBA home ahead of the 2023-24 season, Bleacher Report’s Adam Fromal envisions a veteran wing and a familiar big man as potential signings that make sense for their respective skill sets.

The big man in question may not return to the Association for any team never mind Boston, and the forward actually worked out for the Celtics before being passed over for the players currently competing for (and likely to get) a full roster spot with Boston for 2023-24, so these suggestions come with caveats, but in a vacuum would indeed make sense.

Let’s take a look at both, if you have not already guessed who they are.

Report: Brad Stevens hints Blake Griffin is considering retirement from NBA

Celtics president Brad Stevens recently told the Boston Globe that veteran big man Blake Griffin is welcome back to Boston “if he decides to keep playing.”

The Boston Celtics may look to add depth in the front court after sending big man Robert Williams III to the Portland Trail Blazers as part of the deal that landed Jrue Holiday in the Hub. Fan favorite and former Celtic Blake Griffin has been a popular name in the NBA rumor mill all offseason, but according to team president Brad Stevens, the 34-year-old is considering hanging it up.

In a conversation with the Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn, Stevens revealed he initially had to convince Griffin to join the Celtics last season. After a few persistent phone calls, Stevens eventually landed the six-time All-Star in green. Griffin was a helpful contributor off the bench and a leader in the locker room for the Celtics.

Stevens told Washburn he valued Griffin’s contributions greatly in his first season in Boston and is hopeful Griffin looks to sign up for another stint.

Every Boston Celtics jersey in team history worn by ONLY one player

This is every player in Celtics history who was the only player to wear their jersey number.

The Boston Celtics have more retired jerseys than any other team in the NBA does, and given that knowledge, it might surprise you that they have plenty of jerseys only worn by one player in the entire 75-year history of the team.

Of course, a few of them are among those retired jerseys, but quite a few of them are not. As we draw near to the end of the 2023 offseason series of every jersey ever worn by a Boston Celtics player in the regular season, we would of course be remiss if we skipped out on these loners.

Let’s take a look at those most unique of Celtics jerseys throughout the years.

In a quiet NBA offseason, what have we learned about the Boston Celtics’ roster?

Will the depth players not on guaranteed deals make the ball club? Will Boston convince Blake Griffin to come back to the team? And what other moves might come out of left field?

It’s been an exceptionally quiet NBA offseason for the Boston Celtics in 2023, which is for the most part a welcome respite after the circus that capped last season’s training camp.

But there are lingering concerns about how 2023 Sixth Man of the Year Malcolm Brogdon feels about the team that tried to trade him this summer. And the dearth of news leaves plenty of time to speculate about what the finished roster will look like.

Will the depth players not on guaranteed deals make the club? Will Boston persuade Blake Griffin to come back to the team? And what other moves might come out of left field?

The host of the CLNS Media “Winning Plays” podcast Brian Robb got together with NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg to talk it over.

Check out the clip embedded above to hear what they had to say.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

[lawrence-auto-related count=1 category=590969556]

Who are the best players the Boston Celtics could use to fill their final open roster spot?

Some of these options are currently unrestricted free agents, others are players on teams that need to make some cuts.

Who are the best players the Boston Celtics could use to fill their final open roster spot?

If the Celtics are indeed unable to bring back veteran big man Blake Griffin, they could look at players such as Usman Garuba, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Aaron Wiggins, Kelly Oubre, Cam Payne, Charles Bassey, Kenneth Faried, Austin Rivers, Terence Davis, TJ Warren, Bismack Biyombo, Javonte Green and others.

Some of these options are unrestricted free agents, others are players on teams that need to make cuts. Regardless of their current situation, the Celtics will likely add a player to fill their final open roster spot at some point during the season if not immediately.

The hosts of the “How Bout Them Celtics!” podcast took a deep dive into the available options still on the board.

Take a look at the clip embedded above to hear what they had to say about who Boston could bring onto the team.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

[lawrence-auto-related count=1 category=590969556]