Blake Griffin never expected to end up in television. The 37-year-old six-time All-Star had initial hesitations about entering the media industry, and even after retirement he said broadcasting was not on his mind.
Now Griffin is a cornerstone of Amazon’s NBA coverage and one of the faces of the streamer’s coverage of the play-in tournament and first round of the playoffs. He works alongside host Taylor Rooks and former players Dirk Nowitzki, Udonis Haslem and Steve Nash, a lineup that has made him one of the most visible new voices in the sport.
The path to that job started in an unlikely place: a pre-operation room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in January 2020, when Griffin was preparing for his second left knee surgery in less than a year and found Andrew Whitworth sitting next to him. Whitworth said the moment was “not exactly your best moment,” but the two became fast friends, even as they sat there in hospital gowns “half-naked, staring at each other like, ‘I know you.’”
Griffin went on to rehab and return for four more seasons with the Pistons, Nets and Celtics. Whitworth later retired and moved into broadcasting on Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football, and in March 2024 he told Jared Stacy, Amazon’s vice president of global live sports production, that Griffin reminded him of Ryan Fitzpatrick. “I was like, ‘This is the basketball version of [Fitzpatrick],’” Whitworth said. “I would love for Jared to be around this guy.”
Whitworth invited Griffin to join him for golf with Stacy, who used the outing to gauge whether the former star might have interest in media. The timing mattered: Amazon did not yet have NBA rights, and Griffin was still one month away from formally announcing his retirement. At that point, he said, his interest in broadcast work was “pretty much nonexistent” and that he had no interest in broadcasting. “I just didn’t think it was for me,” Griffin said, adding that he did not see himself fitting in with the TNT crew even though he admired the show and its veterans.
That reluctance did not last. After retiring, Griffin said several networks called about possible studio roles, and he passed on all of them without regret. His hesitation gave way to a role that suits the sharp, outspoken reputation he built during his playing days, when he was one of the league’s most quotable stars and also had a stand-up comedy background that broadened his appeal. Inside the NBA has been basketball’s premier studio show since 1989, but Amazon has moved quickly to build its own identity, and Griffin has become central to it.
For Griffin, the shift from surgery room skepticism to prime-time analyst was not a clean one. It was a chain of conversations, a golf round and a late change of heart that turned a former forward who once wanted no part of television into one of the sport’s most recognizable broadcast newcomers.
