Taylor Griffin sat next to Jeff Capel, whom he'd spotted in the stands at an AAU basketball tournament in Texas in 2006. Both looked on as Taylor's former team, Athletes First, competed, but while Capel was there to watch, Taylor wanted information.
Taylor's younger brother, Blake Griffin, was on the court, and he was one of the most promising high school forwards in the region.
Capel, who had replaced Kelvin Sampson as the University of Oklahoma's basketball coach on April 11, 2006, had already built a good relationship with Taylor Griffin, swaying the forward to remain with the team.
Capel had one Griffin on board, and his presence at the tournament hinted that he might be making a push for the other. At the time, Blake was a high school junior, a top recruit getting attention from elite programs such as Kansas, Duke and North Carolina, and Taylor had heard little from his new coach about any interest in his younger brother.
But there was Capel, hundreds of miles from Norman, sitting in a hot gym and watching Blake. Taylor had to ask, had to know if his coach was really interested in recruiting his younger brother.
Of course he was.
Then why the secrecy? Why hadn't Capel told Taylor he'd be at the tournament? It was simple. In the days and weeks after Capel accepted the job at Oklahoma, recruiting was obviously a top priority, especially after the school lost top commits Scottie Reynolds and Damion James when Sampson departed. But Capel's first priority, he said, were the players already at Oklahoma, including Taylor, who'd averaged 3.1 points and 2.8 rebounds in his freshman season.
Taylor was talented, but Blake was beginning to look like he might be a once-in-a-career recruit for Capel. And the last thing Oklahoma's new coach wanted Taylor to think was that the bond they'd quickly built had anything to do with Blake.
"I wanted to have a great relationship with Taylor," Capel said. "I didn't want him to think that that relationship was based on that I wanted his brother . . . I wanted it to be a real relationship, not a superficial one, not a relationship where you're just using him to get something."
Even so, Blake was becoming something, a commodity to be had at any cost. From the moment he signed with Oklahoma to the day three years later when he was taken as the No. 1 pick in the 2009 NBA draft, Blake Griffin had become a phenomenon. Since his NBA debut on October 27, 2010, he's solidified his status as a dunking superman, an All-Star known for raw ability and power. When people hear the name Griffin, they think Blake. They think dunks, a car, Clippers, even — after Jan. 30 — Kendrick Perkins.
Almost never do they think Taylor.
But outside the realm of celebrity that's claimed Blake Griffin, Taylor Griffin is there in his younger brother's shadow. He still plays basketball, for the Dakota Wizards of the NBA D-League after stints with the Phoenix Suns in the NBA, Iowa Energy in the D-League and Liège Basket in Belgium.
Bismarck, N.D., is much farther from Los Angeles than the 1,600 miles that separate the two cities, and no distance or statistic can capture how much the two brothers' careers have diverged since they left Oklahoma. But even so, no matter how little Blake and Taylor see each other or even talk, the brothers will forever be linked by basketball and the role each has had in the other's career.
Blake was born on March 16, 1989, just 1,063 days after his older brother, Taylor. And for most of their childhoods, Blake was 1,063 days behind. He watched as Taylor joined a basketball team in elementary school and experimented with other sports. Whatever Taylor did, that was what Blake would try to do, what he'd accept as normal. However long Taylor practiced, that's how long Blake expected to practice. However many field goals and threes his older brother shot, Blake knew without question that's how many he'd have to take. When Taylor became more serious about basketball as he entered high school, his work ethic became more dogged — and in Blake's eyes, dogged became normal.
"As a kid and being three years younger, I just thought that's how it was supposed to go," Blake said. "That's kind of what got me going when I really started getting serious about basketball, I just kind of copied everything he did. I owe a lot of where I'm at to him."
When Taylor was in eighth grade and Blake in sixth, the two began to play pickup games at the gym. The games became ever more competitive, both boys exhibiting talent beyond their years, but that wasn't much of a surprise. Taylor and Blake Griffin were something more than just another pair of brothers who loved basketball. They were Tommy Griffin's sons, sons of one of the most respected high school coaches in the Oklahoma City area. Even then, their identities were couched within basketball and family, but those pickup games offered little to suggest the evolution of the brothers' identities that was to come.
The first time Taylor saw Blake dunk, the brothers were in 10th and eighth grade. But it's a vague memory, more of a guess than anything. Blake was good, but there was no reason to commemorate that first dunk. No one could have guessed how much significance it might have.
At the time, the boys had recently enrolled at Oklahoma Christian school, where their father was the basketball coach, and more than ever before, they were Coach Griffin's sons. Under Tommy's coaching, the boys won state championships all four years that Blake was in high school, including Taylor's junior and senior seasons. Then, just as Taylor left for Oklahoma in the fall of 2005, Blake began to truly compete with his older brother, who'd always been the better player.
"For a lot of that time, up until he (got) to OU, he was always the little brother," Taylor said. "It was like any little brother; he was trying to keep up with me. It was a typical little brother-big brother relationship as far as that goes."
Fast forward to that moment not even two years later, in the bleachers at Blake's AAU game. Neither brother knew it just yet, but that dynamic had begun to shift, and when Blake joined Taylor at Oklahoma in 2007, it became official. They were the Griffin brothers. Sure, Blake was the coveted recruit, but Taylor was an experienced junior, a true member of the squad. No matter that in their first season at Oklahoma Blake averaged more than twice as many points as his older brother (14.7 to Taylor's 6.5) — Taylor was still the role model.
That was easy for Capel to see as he watched the brothers. He noted it all, Blake's almost unprecedented skill set and Taylor's amazing determination. Blake came in as an NBA draft pick, and Taylor was becoming one with each passing day. Capel helped each brother redefine his expectations, pushing Taylor to a higher level and convincing Blake that the goals he thought of as difficult — turning pro early, starting in his freshman season — might be less of a challenge than he'd originally believed. But no matter how clear it became that Blake was becoming the superior player, the brothers clung to their shared role. They refused to be anything but the Griffin brothers.
"I thought that Taylor helped make Blake better, and I thought Blake helped make Taylor better," Capel said. "I felt they helped each other tremendously. You could always see how much Blake looked up to Taylor, how much he admired him as a role model, as a big brother."
Taylor played a part in Blake's decision to return to Oklahoma after his freshman season, when he could have been a lottery pick in the 2008 NBA draft. But Taylor was remaining for his senior year, and Blake wanted one last chance to play alongside the person who'd most shaped his basketball career. After Oklahoma, nothing was guaranteed. After Oklahoma was the draft and new teams, big money for one brother and a swath of uncertainty for the other.
On draft night in 2009, everyone knew Blake would go first to the Clippers. Not that it was anticlimactic, Capel said, but the moment that stuck in his and the Griffins' minds that night was when Taylor's name was called. Waiting for his older brother to get his shot as a pro was more nerve-wracking than the moments leading up to his own selection, Blake said, and Capel observed that Blake looked most excited that night not after the first pick was called but after the 48th: Taylor Griffin to the Phoenix Suns.
But no amount of excitement or renewed hope in an older brother's career could change what happened that night, as Blake donned his Clippers hat on national television and Taylor shook hands with Suns officials to much less fanfare. No matter that their relationships with each had never changed; the Griffin brothers' relationship to each other was forever altered.
"I'm Blake's brother, which I'm used to now," Taylor said. "It's been a while. It definitely has been a transition. We grew up being Tommy Griffin's sons. Then Blake was Taylor Griffin's little brother. Then we get to OU, and we're the Griffin brothers. Now, I'm Blake Griffin's brother."
In a perfect world, the two would have debuted against each other, on Oct. 28, 2009, when the Suns opened the season in Los Angeles. But a knee injury sidelined Blake, and Taylor didn't take the court until a week later in Orlando.
Since then, Blake's career path has become common knowledge. In his NBA debut, he finished with 20 points and 14 rebounds, a stat line that's become normal for one of the league's best young power forwards. Taylor, though, spent barely more than a month with Phoenix before being sent to the D-League's Iowa Energy, and though he was eventually called up again, the Suns waived him after his rookie season.
Taylor spent the 2010-11 season playing in Belgium, missing all of Blake's first season with the Clippers. While his brother energized the franchise, in Taylor's mind it remained the empty, dead Staples Center where he first sat on an NBA bench in 2009. Even Taylor wasn't prepared for what he saw at the beginning of this season, when he traveled to Los Angeles for the first few Clippers home games after being cut by the Bobcats after training camp. It was the first time he'd seen his younger brother play in an NBA game, and in just the year he'd been overseas, Blake had helped to transform the Clippers into what Taylor called a "big-time program."
But right now, there's little room for the big time in Taylor's life. After watching those first few games, he traveled to Bismarck, N.D., where his former Iowa Energy coach, Nate Bjorkgren, had become the head coach of the Dakota Wizards. There, Taylor has resumed the life of a D-League player, focused as always on improving. Right now, he's trying to perfect playing forward again after altering his game overseas, and he's focusing on his perimeter shooting in front of crowds that make the Clippers' in 2009 look like a packed house.
"He's a guy that's really, really working at his game, and his game is much improved," Bjorkgren said.
The Wizards coach is unflinching in his admiration for Taylor, adamant he's more than a D-League journeyman, more than just Blake Griffin's brother despite the uncanny resemblance and occasional case of mistaken identity. Bjorkgren has seen Taylor's growth over the past three seasons, his willingness to travel thousands of miles for the best opportunities. And from that perspective, it's easier to believe that this 25-year-old former high school star and college standout will make it. Taylor, too, knows that he's doing all the right things, but for him it's not only about whether he's going to get another chance in the NBA but also about how and when. To see it all come so much easier for the kid brother who'd always followed his lead must be a confusing sort of pride, an affirmation that, yes, he can make it coupled with the nagging question of why it hasn't happened yet.
And then there's that kid brother, traveling across the country on chartered flights, leading the Clippers to what will be their first playoff run in six years. He's living in a different world, no doubt, but at the mere mention of Taylor, it's as if he's snapped into a different reality.
"He'll get another shot, for sure," Blake said. "But I honestly believe that he'll get back up here. That's not even really being biased. He has all the tools, and he works hard."
Blake's blinks, and looks off to the side, staring at the wall of the Target Center's visitors' locker room as if searching for something beyond it. It's as if he's talking to his older brother, hoping he'll hear him before his words reach North Dakota in print.
"I obviously wish him the best."
Those aren't just the words of a brother. They're the words of an admirer, someone who knows he wouldn't be sitting in that very folding chair outside that very locker if it weren't for someone else. Because though Taylor might forever be marked as Blake Griffin's brother, there will always be a little of him in everything Blake does on the court, every powerful rebound and highlight-worthy dunk.
But Taylor knows he has the skills. He knows he can succeed, and where basketball is concerned, watching Blake isn't enough. And that, that refusal to be satisfied, is why Taylor Griffin might just make it, after all.
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