The personal friction began almost immediately after Griffin was drafted first overall in 2009, when Griffin says he was paraded at Sterling's private 'White Party'—an episode Griffin describes as awkward and objectifying and that formed his earliest impressions of the owner [15][16]. Over the next several seasons Griffin and teammates navigated public moments of owner interference and eccentric behavior that players later recalled in interviews and profiles [16][15]. Tension shifted from discomfort to confrontation in April 2014 when audio recordings of Sterling making racist remarks were released; the tapes prompted league action and put Griffin and his teammates at the center of a debate about protest, play and the franchise's future [3][9][15].
Donald Sterling was banned for life by the NBA and forced to sell the Clippers in 2014, removing him from any operational role [9][3]. Blake Griffin publicly contrasted Sterling and new owner Steve Ballmer—calling Sterling a "weird uncle" and Ballmer a "cool dad"—and Griffin has since stayed with the franchise through the Ballmer era, with no ongoing public back-and-forth between him and Sterling after the sale [15][10].
Griffin publicly described feeling uncomfortable with Sterling's behavior and later criticized Sterling's conduct in a Players' Tribune essay, calling Sterling a "weird uncle" [15][10]. After the April 2014 tapes Sterling was banned and sold the team, and there has been no ongoing public exchange between Sterling and Griffin since the sale [3][9][15].
Griffin points to an early, awkward introduction at Sterling's 2009 'White Party' that made him feel objectified and to repeated owner behavior players found disrespectful; those recollections gained public weight after April 2014 when Sterling's racist remarks were released [15][16][3].
No public reconciliation has been reported. Sterling was banned and forced to sell the Clippers in 2014, and Griffin has spoken positively about new owner Steve Ballmer while preserving his criticisms of Sterling's era; there is no record of renewed contact or friendship between Sterling and Griffin after 2014 [9][3][15][10].