According to TMZ, the Los Angeles Clippers assistant equipment manager who Blake Griffin punched during an off-court altercation, Matias Testi, will not be back with the team for 2016-17.
Here’s the skinny:
The L.A. Clippers equipment staffer who was punched in the face by Blake Griffin during a fight in Toronto earlier this year is off the team — and will NOT be back for the ’16/’17 season … TMZ Sports has learned.
We spoke with a rep for the Clippers who confirmed Matias Testi “no longer works for the team.”
Testi had been employed by the Clippers for years — and was on the road with Griffin back in January when the NBA superstar snapped and punched him in the head.
Griffin broke his hand during the incident and was later suspended by the team.
It seemed the two sides buried the hatchet — with Blake and Matias shaking hands at a Clippers game one month after the fight.
The Clippers wouldn’t say whether Testi was fired or if he quit — or if the fight had anything to do with the situation.
At times like this, it’s important not to make any sweeping assumptions. Maybe Testi found a better gig in another field, or perhaps he wasn’t especially pivotal to the team’s equipment staff to begin with. Still, it’s difficult not to believe that the January altercation had something to do with his departure.
That whole situation was a public relations nightmare. It looked worse for Griffin, one of the primary faces of the Clippers. But the more distance the team can put between them and that controversy, the better. Maybe that’s what helped cost Testi his job.
Or perhaps he and Griffin never really buried the hatchet, in which case the Clippers, right or wrong, are clearly going to side with one of their franchise cornerstones.
Whatever the case, this is a pretty cruddy situation. Unless Testi’s exit had absolutely, positively, unequivocally nothing to do with the fight between Griffin and himself, this type of collateral damage is unsettling at the professional level.
