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Posted on Sun, Oct. 19, 2003

Stephen A. Smith | Griffin too lucky to throw in towel
By Stephen A. Smith
Inquirer Columnist

You could feel the exasperation more than a thousand miles away, which is easier to do when roars and cheers are replaced with silence. Two years removed from being a star at Seton Hall, Eddie Griffin was supposed to be a star in the NBA now, not looking to throw it all away at the tender age of 21.

Griffin, the 6-foot-10 product of Roman Catholic High School, was in the news last week. As has been the case with more players than NBA commissioner David Stern would prefer, it was for all the wrong reasons.

"Eddie missed a flight to go to Sacramento," Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson said Friday. "Once we got back, he missed the next workout, after talking it over with coach Jeff Van Gundy. Obviously, we couldn't tolerate this. We had to suspend him. That's all we're willing to say."

Considering the murmurs, who can blame him?

Because Griffin was a first-time offender of the league's drug policy last season after being charged with possession in April, there have been questions about mar1juana use. Back in Philadelphia, even more rumors are swirling.

There's the complicated relationship with a girlfriend and the recent birth of their child. There are the hangers-on who are as prevalent as flies in the humid Houston weather.

Yet no one knows what specifically is the problem.

"All anyone cares about right now is that Eddie is all right so he can play," a Griffin confidant said. "He wants to quit playing basketball. He doesn't want to play anymore. He's just drained by all the responsibilities in his life and he can't take it anymore. Some, you just know he'll get past. There's too much to lose. But that doesn't mean he isn't going through some tough times right now."

Considering his basketball credentials over the last two seasons, Griffin has been going through a little more than that.

After averaging 17.8 points and 10.8 rebounds his freshman year at Seton Hall, Griffin was the No. 7 pick of the New Jersey Nets in the 2001 NBA draft, then was traded to the Rockets for Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins and Brandon Armstrong. And if he's done a thing worth mentioning since, somebody's hiding the records.

In two seasons, he has career averages of 8.7 points and 5.8 rebounds. Averaging nearly 26 minutes per night his rookie year, then 24.5 minutes per night last season, Griffin simply has not lived up to expectations.

He's gotten older, bigger and seemingly slower. His jump shot has been off, evidenced by his career 38.3 percent shooting. He has no post-up game worth mentioning. No fluidity to his repertoire.

Worse, his work habits have been nothing to be proud of. After telling the Rockets he would be in Philadelphia for workouts this summer, Griffin skipped out on those workouts, then lied about it, infuriating Van Gundy just weeks after he came into the job.

It would be easy to dismiss it as an isolated incident. Something that comes with youth, immaturity and pressure. Except it serves as a reminder of Griffin's college days - when he was suspended after a fight with a teammate - and of the troubles of numerous players in the NBA today.

The Blazers are still disgusted over Damon Stoudamire's three mar1juana charges in the last 18 months. Glenn Robinson arrived in Philadelphia with a domestic dispute on the books. We've heard too much, already, about Kobe Bryant's sexual assault case. And Griffin's personal issues fall right in line with every concern we have about today's athletes.

The pressure is not just the job, but the money that comes with it and the contagious effect it has.

More money brings out those who present themselves as friends, when they should be recognized as vultures. Once the realization of it all hits you, it's no wonder the NBA is pursuing a minimum-age rule for players.

You can't be alone in a room for five minutes with Stern without hearing his line: "The NBA is the greatest game in the world. Our athletes are committed to excellence, to being the greatest basketball players in the world."

Now he's hoping we all recognize as much.

"We are all so lucky to be in this game," Rockets GM Dawson said, "and I'm not just talking about the players. Myself. Reporters. All of us. We make a living being involved in a game."

He didn't add, "Who'd want to walk away from that?"

The answer should be, "No one!"

Any soul with sense shouldn't want to shove aside a $2,312,000 salary like Griffin is making, with more guaranteed in the near future, just for the sake of omitting tension and responsibility from his life.

Then again, when you're 21, it happens.

In Griffin's case, it's happening much more than any of us would prefer.


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Contact columnist Stephen A. Smith at 215-854-5846 or ssmith@phillynews.com.

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Rockets can't agree on plan of attack
Last Updated: Oct. 19, 2003
NBA Beat



Tom Enlund

Houston, you have a problem.

At least that's what the early returns indicate as first-year Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy and all-stars Steve Francis and Yao Ming are attempting to get on the same page.

Van Gundy appears to have his work cut out for him on this one.

The problem is that Van Gundy wants to dump the ball into the 7-foot-6 Yao as often as possible on offense, whereas Francis prefers to take matters into his own hands.

Hence, the friction.

"Steve offensively, right now, is trying to hit the home run every time down," Van Gundy said. "Steve is sometimes so great he can hit a home run. To shake somebody and take on another guy and take tough shots . . . the game's got to be easier. We're not playing team offense the right way. Blown play after play, assignment after assignment."

Said Francis: "I've been playing the same way for five years. The part of me going one-on-one when the shot clock is going down, that's what I've got to do. I'm not going to throw the ball to a 7-foot guy on the three-point line if I can do something at the end of the shot clock."

Granted, nobody said it was going to be easy when Van Gundy, as intense a coach as there is in the league, took over for the laid-back Rudy Tomjanovich, who had coached the team since 1991. Tomjanovich, who coached the Rockets to championships in 1994 and 1995, left the team because of health-related problems.

Van Gundy admits there is not one area of the Rockets' game that he deems acceptable at this point. He has found fault in the effort that is being put forth by the players, their practice and game habits and what he calls a resistance to change. Van Gundy says he is a firm believer in playing well in the exhibition season to start the season off right.

The Rockets lost their first four exhibition games before defeating what passed for the Sacramento Kings last week.

"It's frustrating," Yao said. "There's a lot of problems we need to fix. And we need to use these experiences to discover what our problems are."

Van Gundy's frustration boiled over after an 89-71 loss to New Orleans.

"It wrenches my gut to say that right now we don't play hard," he said. "Until we do - and that's the foundation for every good team: giving an honest day's effort every night and being unselfish - we're going to struggle."

Francis seems less concerned.

"Whatever," he said. "As a team, we just have to get on the same page. We're straight. We're cool."

Byron's dilemma
New Jersey Nets coach Byron Scott is still trying to figure out whether he wants to start center Alonzo Mourning or bring him in off the bench.

Scott thinks being a reserve would take some wear and tear off Mourning and that he would have an advantage over the other team's second-line center. Mourning, on the other hand, is used to starting and would have to use heat packs to stay warm on the bench. But he says he will go along with whatever Scott decides, because he wants to win a title.

"The window of opportunity is closing," Mourning said. "This chance may not come again for me to do this. I'm going to do what I can to try and make it happen."

Anyone seen Eddie?
The joke around Houston was that no one was really surprised when forward Eddie Griffin missed a team charter flight to Sacramento.

He was shooting 28.6%, so because he was missing everything else, he might as well miss the flight, too. What made the incident troublesome to the Rockets was that he did not return calls from Rockets officials trying to locate him. Two days later, after joining the team, he met with Van Gundy and was suspended for two games. He then missed practice the next day and was suspended indefinitely.

Griffin is free on bond after a mar1juana possession charge last April and the case is scheduled for a hearing later this month. He missed a game last season because, as he told team officials, his dog got out of the house and bit a neighbor. Keep in mind this is the guy for whom Houston gave up Richard Jefferson in a 2001 draft-related trade.

What to do with Zach?
Rasheed Wallace at small forward?

That's one of the options that Portland coach Maurice Cheeks is considering as he ponders his starting lineup. It all depends on how he decides to use 6-foot-9 forward Zach Randolph.

In the playoff series against Dallas last season, Cheeks at times used the 260-pound Randolph at power forward, which slid the 6-11 Wallace over to small forward. Randolph led Portland to three straight victories over Dallas after he was inserted into the starting lineup.

"His challenge, if we go that way, will be guarding guys like Jimmy Jackson, because they're smaller and they're quicker," Cheeks said, referring to Wallace. "They can't guard him, but his challenge will be to see if he can guard them."

Just a trim, please
Former Milwaukee Bucks guard Terrell Brandon is retired and a content man living in his hometown of Portland, Ore., running a commercial complex and a barber shop.

Brandon, you may recall, sat out the second half of the 1998-'99 season with an injury as the Bucks fell out of playoff contention, costing coach Chris Ford his job. Near the end of that season, Brandon was traded to Minnesota in a three-way deal that sent Stephon Marbury from Minnesota to New Jersey and brought Sam Cassell to Milwaukee.

Brandon then signed a six-year, $60 million deal with the Timberwolves but he played only two full seasons in Minnesota. He played in only 32 games in 2001-'02 and sat out all of last season with an injury.

In July, Brandon's contract was traded to Atlanta in the deal that sent Glenn Robinson to Philadelphia, Keith Van Horn to New York and Latrell Sprewell to Minnesota.

Atlanta will receive salary-cap relief when his retirement becomes official later this season. Brandon, meanwhile, will collect the final two years of his contract, $11.1 million this season and $12.025 million next.

Nice work if you can get it.

Up with people
Van Horn, meanwhile, is getting booed at Madison Square Garden as the guy who replaced the popular Sprewell.

Van Horn was booed during introductions of a game against Minnesota - with Sprewell in the building - and was booed during the game despite leading the Knicks in scoring and rebounding.

He was booed more in a game against San Antonio, but his eight turnovers didn't help his cause.

"I hope our fans will be fair with him," Knicks coach Don Chaney said. "And evaluate him on what he does, not by what Latrell did."

Where's the leader?
With the departure of John Stockton and Karl Malone, the Jazz is seeking out a team leader, but there is a dearth of candidates. At age 30, Greg Ostertag is the team's elder statesman, but has never been the leader type. Second in seniority on the team is DeShawn Stevenson, but he's only 22 years old. After that, the Jazz would be looking at players like Andrei Kirilenko or Matt Harpring.

What's a coach to do?

"You'll hear guys say, 'I'm a natural leader,' but it may not be the leadership you want," Utah coach Jerry Sloan said. "I'm only interested in one thing and that's try to get a team that will play together, hopefully as hard as they can, and we hope that somebody develops a little leadership out of this."

Material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers and league and team sources was used in this report.




From the Oct. 19, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

 

Interesting that at least four articles were Eddie'd this week-end in local newspapers across these U-nited States.