In the past several years, NBA players play just as significant role in recruiting free agents as the NBA teams themselves. While some of them have a lot of success doing it, like LeBron James and most recently, Kawhi Leonard, others are not particularly successful in this.
Detroit Pistons’ forward Blake Griffin decided to get in on the recruitment game in this year’s free agency, but things did not turn out the way he imagined. Speaking on Pardon My Take podcast, Griffin admitted that he was “0 for 3” in recruitments in 2019.
“I did a few calls, a few texts, a few reach-outs… You know what? I think I was 0 for 3 this year,” Griffin said laughing. “I texted him and literally like I think like 30 minutes later it was like ‘Jeff Green has signed with the Utah Jazz.'”
Griffin shouldn’t be too hard on himself, however, as the failure of his recruitment attempts were probably more about Detroit Pistons than himself. Pistons didn’t have too much cap space to work with this summer, so they couldn’t get into the race for some top stars.
Still, Pistons managed to make something out of nothing and bring in Derrick Rose and Markieff Morris, who might prove as valuable role players while the team attempts to get back into playoffs.
