Blake Griffin grew up watching his father, Tommy Griffin, coach basketball in Oklahoma. One of those teams was at John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City, including the team that won the 5A state championship in 1996.
The Detroit Pistons star, just 7 years old at the time, admired one of the team members, Julius Jones, who had a promising college basketball career ahead of him. Just three years later, a 19-year-old Jones was arrested in the death of Paul Howell, an Edmond, Oklahoma, businessman who was fatally shot during a carjacking in his parents' driveway.
Jones was convicted in 2002, and sentenced to death.