Clippers hope Blake Griffin can change their fortunes

Jimmy Fallon executed a neat spin move in the bustling hallway outside the various green rooms at his show at NBC and looked up at the future of a basketball franchise.

“Oh my God, you’re the tallest dude,” Fallon said, craning his head to see Blake Griffin.

That established, he moved on to another physical point. They compared the size of their hands, at Fallon’s request. It wasn’t quite like an adult compared with a small child but you get the idea in terms of disparity -- almost like Griffin looming over fellow guest Abigail Breslin on the Fallon set Tuesday night.

Just call Griffin Not-So-Little Mister Sunshine.

That’s almost the impact Griffin has had on the oft-beleaguered Clippers franchise since they won the draft lottery in May. Finally, here was a bright light cutting through a team’s star-crossed history.

The Clippers declared a few hours after the lottery they would take the Oklahoma power forward with the No. 1 pick and an air of excitement has been palpable through the organization. The NBA draft will be held tonight at Madison Square Garden.

The rebounding machine -- who led the nation with 30 double-doubles last season, averaging 22.7 points and 14.4 rebounds -- is one of the few sure things in a draft seemingly gone mad, much to the chagrin of the mock drafters. The Clippers, who won 19 games last season, have been getting phone calls about Griffin, of late, but only because rival team executives feel the need to go through the obligatory motions.

“I think this is going to be a draft where there’s a lot of uncertainty,” said Clippers assistant general manager Neil Olshey. “And I think you’re going to get guys clustered into three or four players in a group.

“One could be a star, one could be a bust, one could be a mediocre player. I think a lot of people are struggling with who that guy is right now.”

USC’s DeMar DeRozan, who could go in the top 10, didn’t hesitate to use the g-word in regard to Griffin, having shared court time against him last season.

“He can be great,” DeRozan said. “You really don’t see big men as athletic as Blake Griffin was. I had the chance to play against him this year. Just to see how talented he is and how big and strong he is, is amazing.”

Griffin to the Clippers may well be the worst-kept secret in professional sports. So much so, that attempts at mystery -- to appease an irritated NBA -- feel faintly ridiculous. Call it trying to put a 6-foot-10 genie back in the bottle.

Even Griffin had a crack at it on the Fallon show. “I could be with the Knicks,” he said.

Well, the man does know how to please a crowd.

Earlier that day, Griffin picked up the mood of the city. In the six or so minutes it took him to walk from a promotional event at a Subway sandwich store near Washington Square to the famous basketball court, The Cage, Griffin was greeted by a host of well-wishers and many were quick to bestow Gotham citizenship.

One fan, to Griffin: “Hey, Blake. Welcome to New York.”

Griffin: “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

Fan: “Hope the Knicks draft you.”

Griffin: “Oh, we’ll see.”

It wasn’t nearly as warm and inviting on Wednesday during a pre-draft media availability session. After the obligatory how-does-it-feel question -- “I can’t wait. It seems as though the last week has taken forever. So I’m ready for it to be here” -- came tougher ones about whether he tried to get the Clippers not to draft him and how it would be to share Los Angeles with the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant.

Said Griffin: “I don’t know how you share it with someone like that. But I’ll take my own corner.”

Reporter: “Right, wrong or indifferent, the Clippers are perceived as one of the worst franchises in all of professional sports. Are you ready to embrace part of being the solution?”

Griffin: “I am. I’m not worried about anything that has happened in the past. I wasn’t a part of that and a lot of the guys that are there now weren’t a part of it.

“So, I mean, we’re only looking forward to the future. If I’m there, I’m going to make the best of out of whatever situation I’m put in and go from there.”

He has a dry sense of humor and can perform a mean imitation or two. But only when he feels comfortable in a situation.

“The problem is that I do imitations of my teammates and our coaches once I’ve been around them,” Griffin said. “I normally don’t do them in interviews. Maybe later on down the line.”

Still, having just turned 20 in March, Griffin seems to deal with everything thrown at him with a certain laconic ease. That served him well at The Cage when he received good-natured teasing about Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio being better and his older brother Taylor Griffin getting drafted by the Harlem Globetrotters.

It also came in handy when he was busy making a sandwich in the store with the affable, well-known pitchman Jared Fogle in front of several camera crews and a crowded space full of people.

At one point, Griffin got a little too close to the stove for comfort. Working with knives and being near a stove certainly seemed a test of the Clippers karma.

“We don’t want to get burned,” Jared said. “That would be bad. I can’t take that responsibility.”

Spoken by a man who knows about these sort things. Jared is, after all, a big fan of the Indiana Pacers, who are coming off three straight losing seasons.

Then again, the Clippers curse can’t hit a player before he is actually drafted by the franchise, right? But luckily Griffin moved away from the stove, safely away from the heat, for now.

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lisa.dillman@latimes.com