Eddie Griffin: A Talented Tragedy

Former NBA forward Eddie Griffin died in mid-August in a fiery blaze of fire from a train wreck. He died with dreams unfulfilled, he died a professional basketball player with unfulfilled dreams, and most disappointingly, he died a very sick and broken young man.

At 6-feet-10 and 230 lbs. of muscle, coming out of a New Jersey Catholic academy, becoming one of America's most talented prep players in 2000, before then starring at Seton Hall for a freshman season and becoming a top-ten pick in the 2001 NBA Draft, Eddie Griffin was destined for greatness.

He was going to be the next Scottie Pippen, he was going to do what former New Jersey prepster Tim Thomas hadn't done. After all, both Pippen and Thomas were about 6'10", about the same in weight, and all were seen as prototypical small forwards. The comparison was flawed because Thomas has never did much more than become a high-paid role player, valued largely for his potential to be great; Pippen was for years an under-paid, Hall of Fame role player who played beyond the potential to be arguably the best small forward to ever play the game. Griffin never did become great, and he never did cash in, because his alcoholism held him back.

The East Coast wunderkind ended up as the seventh overall pick in 2001, but even that was a disappointment. Suspended various times throughout a promising season spent with Seton Hall University in his lone year of the 2000-'01 collegiate season, Griffin was projected as the number one overall selection before his college career even began. With his maturity being questioned, he was taken by his hometown New Jersey Nets, but jettisoned to the Houston Rockets that same June night.

He spent his first two seasons as a promising, young, three-point-shooting piece added to the Rockets' nucleus, hoping that he would help to form a trio of stars with All-Star teammates Steve Francis and Yao Ming. A third year in the league and the signs of a serious personal problem arose in the form of his substance abuse and he was released by those same Rockets, but picked up by the team that originally chose him and playing the man for whom he was initially traded-Nets small forward Richard Jefferson.

The next three (and final) seasons of Griffin's career saw him suit up with the Minnesota Timberwolves, a mere silhouette of the player he was destined to be. From November 2004 to March 2007, Griffin experienced his highest highs as a player and his even lower lows. Some games he seemed to dominate on the court with future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett. There were the 20-point, 15-rebound, 5-assist games...and then there were the games where the numbers hardly registered at all. He saw periods of action during his sober moments, and he saw icy cold pits of inaction with suspensions and various in-game benchings; he went AWOL, and later he'd get DNP-CDs (did not play-coach's decision).

Sadly, Griffin relapsed a time too many just before he was released by the Timberwolves, having distracted the team with his curious absences and tardiness, lacking the responsibility of seizing his opportunity to make good on a career that could've gone high-maybe not to the stratosphere, but high enough for him to live up to the multimillion dollar contract he was given by Minnesota.

Just before his death, he was most famous for a lawsuit that was being served against him for hitting a parked car in a near-barren lot while allegedly masturbating to a porn video that he watched from his SUV's center console early in the year.

Now, Eddie Griffin has become merely a name. There won't be any large press conferences about him, there won't be any jersey retirement ceremonies, and there probably won't be any noticeable differences at all. There weren't a whole lot of highlights of him during his NBA career, because in reality, he didn't play to highlight-worthy level. If anything, Griffin will be known as a young man, just 25 years old, who couldn't grasp his reality and didn't really see what his future could've been.