Eric Griffin has been cut by five NBA teams and wrongfully charged with attempted murder but refused to give up on his basketball dream
Cut by five NBA teams, wrongfully charged with attempted murder and constantly moving all over the world. Adelaide 36er Eric Griffin has done it the hard way. And he says he will go into Sunday’s game against Utah Jazz with a chip on his shoulder.
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Eric Griffin knows what it is like to be kicked in the face.
Cut by five NBA teams within weeks of signing a contract and wrongfully charged with attempted murder and locked up, the Adelaide 36ers’ new star import keeps on getting up.
And as the Sixers prepare for their NBA pre-season test against the Utah Jazz on Sunday, Griffin says this one will be personal.
Two years ago he signed a two-way contract with the Jazz and was performing with their G-League team when just hours before a game he was told to pack his bags.
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“The GM and the G-League coach called me in right before a game and told me I’d been waived,” Griffin told The Advertiser in Utah this week.
“They told me I had a flight booked the next day so get my things ready.
“I signed a two-way contract and to me that was big, I thought I was going to stick, but unfortunately to this day I still don’t know what happened and why they waived me.
“I was doing everything right, going to the gym early, getting extra shots, working on my plays, I still don’t know why I got cut.”
When Griffin returns to Vivint Smart Home Arena for the first time since that meeting with the Jazz this weekend, memories of the meeting will be fresh in his mind.
“I expect to win,” Griffin said.
“How can I put this game? I am going to take it to heart. They chose players over me that weren’t as good as me so I’m going to play with a chip on my shoulder.”
Griffin played basketball was a kid and growing up in Orlando he idolised Shaquille O’Neal and Tracy McGrady.
He played in a ‘junior magic’ squad but says he was a late bloomer who wasn’t competitive with kids his age until he had a growth spurt in his late teens. But professional basketball was always the dream.
“Watching the NBA that was my dream,” he said.
“I always thought it was possible, I still do.”
Griffin did it the hard way right from the start, being cut from his high school team at Maynard Evans.
“The politics, they always knew who they were going to pick before the season started,” Griffin said.
So he switched schools in his senior year before going on to Hiwassee College only for it to lose its accreditation after his first year.
“So that year didn’t count, I had to go to a summer school and start all over again, it was waste of a year,” he said.
He transferred to Garden City College and then Campbell and went undrafted in 2012.
“I thought I was going to be drafted, but it was what it was,” he said.
So Griffin turned professional in Italy and left the US to live on his own.
“It was a good experience, fresh out of college, I was by myself so I had to learn a lot,” he said.
The NBA summer league came knocking almost every year after that and he signed contracts with the Lakers, Miami, Dallas, Detroit and Utah, but they never lasted more than two months.
“The most upsetting one was Utah,” he said.
“The situation in Miami was different, they’d just won the championship so I knew they wanted vets, they didn’t have no time for rookies.
“Dallas was about the same but I stuck around and thought I was going to get called up.”
Sixers getting to work in Utah today. pic.twitter.com/wz91Qqztrz
— Reece Homfray (@reecehomfray) October 3, 2019
In between all that he played professionally in Italy, Dubai, Dominican Republic, Puerto Reuco and Israel.
“It’s been tough being away from family for so long,” Griffin said.
But if there was anything good to come from his summer league stint with Utah Jazz in 2017 it was that he met Adelaide 36ers coach Joey Wright who was working for the Jazz at the time.
“He always used to tell me he wanted me to play for his team, but I didn’t know anything about the Australian league,” Griffin said.
“I was just like ‘yeah, OK’, and he kept at me every year, then he finally got me.
“He contacted me earlier this year and asked ‘what are you doing this season?’
“I was like ‘I ain’t doing nothing’, and he told me he’d get in contact with my agent and would work everything out.
“I’ve got a good relationship with him, he knows a lot of parts to the game and can get you to where you need to be.”
If dealing with the ruthlessness of professional basketball - constantly being signed and then cut - wasn’t enough to unsettle Griffin then a serious brush with the law in 2016 was.
Griffin was shopping in a men’s clothing store in Florida one day in April when police officers stormed in yelling his name and arrested him.
They were investigating a shooting in downtown Orlando days earlier, and Griffin was charged with attempted first degree murder and put in protective custody for a week where he spent 23 hours a day in his jail cell.
He was eventually released on a $15,000 bond but had to endure eight weeks of uncertainty before the charges were dropped after a home video surveillance system showed he was at home - where he said he was - at the time of the shooting.
“It really did hit me hard, it messed up a lot,” Griffin said.
“I stayed at home, I didn’t play basketball.
“I wasn’t worried, I just wanted to know when it would be over and how long the process was going to take.
“It felt longer than two months at the time.
“I was asking ‘why’, ‘why would the dude say my name’, and I think it messed up my credibility.
“I knew of him (the victim) but he wasn’t a friend of mine.”
With that now a painful but distant memory, Griffin arrived in Adelaide in August and is loving life again.
“I’m 20 minutes away from the beach and the city is wonderful,” he said.
“The Entertainment Centre is really nice, it was like an NBA game.
“It gave me an NBA vibe.”
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Griffin is incredibly softly spoken who moves slowly off the court. But on it he is a completely different beast.
“That’s just my personality ... I’m like a different person on the court, I’m passionate about the game,” he said.
He will have to be on his game against the Jazz given he will likely be standing 216cm giant Rudy Gobert who broke the NBA dunk record last season and was the league’s defensive player of the year for a second time.
“It will be a good experience, when I was there he was a good person, he was good for me, but it’s competition now,” Griffin said.
reece.homfray@news.com.au