You’ve got to feel for Marcellus Wiley. He’s a Clippers fan. The former NFL star and current ESPN personality was hosting his ESPN Los Angeles radio show when news of the stunning Blake Griffin blockbuster went down.
It’s a lot to have to digest when your favorite team makes a franchise-altering major decision like this. And when it’s a surprise trade out-of-nowhere of your team’s star player, it can really mess with your emotions. It just so happens that most of us are lucky enough to process things like this without having to be live on the air in the second largest media market in the country.
Not Wiley. Watch the feed from within the studio as he reacts in real time to the news of Griffin’s trade to the Pistons and lets out a couple of expletives along the way.
He has officially lost it. @marcelluswiley's LIVE reactions. pic.twitter.com/QuvEXI5roQ
— ESPN Los Angeles (@ESPNLosAngeles) January 30, 2018
The best part about this is that the YouTube version actually censors out Wiley’s “you m—-f—ers” while the Twitter version does not for some reason.
If that’s Wiley’s reaction, just imagine what Griffin must be going through after the Clippers just went through the charade of a faux jersey retirement for him to try to woo him into staying in Los Angeles. I’m sure those Detroit winters will console him in leaving Los Angeles.
The Clippers gave Blake Griffin a crazy-elaborate free agent pitch, even mock-retiring his jersey to the rafters…six months later he's shipped off to Detroit, a team he'd never have even taken a meeting with. Expect every big free agent this summer to demand a no-trade clause.
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) January 30, 2018
It’s not all doom and gloom for the Clippers, though. Sure, the CP3-Blake era is officially over and so is their best chance in franchise history to actually make a run at the Finals. But there is a gleam of optimism! By clearing out Griffin, maybe the Clippers have enough room to make a run at LeBron James this offseason. At least that’s the hope Wiley and other Clipper fans can now cling to before they’re ultimately disappointed yet again.
