Nets: Griffin kept his faith on long, difficult road to the pros

[kevin lok <kevin.lok@lycosmail.com>]

Very nice article on AD. Incidentally I watched the Magic/Pacers game few days ago
on TV, guess who played the hardest? Yep ex-CBA players, C Atkins, D Armstrong and
Bo Outlaw. Pitino should stock his 11-14th man with CBA refugees, who appears to
appreciate the NBA much more than those drafted players.


> Nets: Griffin kept his faith on long, difficult road to the pros
> 02/08/00
> By Don Burke
> STAFF WRITER
> Six months ago, Adrian Griffin harbored no illusions.
> A veteran of three CBA seasons, all he wanted was to somehow latch on with the
> Boston Celtics Summer League team. On Saturday, the former Seton Hall star, now a
> full-fledged member of the Celtics, will participate in the NBA's Rookie All-Star
> Game.
> He will not go alone. Griffin will be the first to tell you that he accomplished
> none of this by himself. His wife, Audrey, seven months pregnant with the couple's
> second child, will be in the first-class seat alongside him.
> Right where she has been all along.
> "She's been my hero," said Griffin, who will be in uniform tonight when the
> Celtics meet the Nets for the second time in five nights, this time at Continental
> Airlines Arena. "All the things she's done for us, all the sacrifices she's made.
> She's been real supportive."
> An athlete herself, Audrey Griffin ran the quarter mile and the 800 for Seton
> Hall's track team. In between practice and classes and studies, she raised their
> daughter, Vanessa, now two, while Adrian was in Avon, Conn., playing for the CBA's
> Connecticut Pride.
> "Anybody will tell you that to run track and be a student is hard work," Griffin
> said. "But to have a daughter to raise and take care of the apartment and
> everything. And, on top of that, she'd come visit me in Connecticut on the
> weekends. Sometimes she'd do it just for a night. Then she'd go back to school and
> start all over again. She did that for two years.
> "It was rough on both of us. But I think it made us and our relationship stronger.
> We got married young and the time apart gave us time to grow up and appreciate the
> little things. It's definitely made us closer."
> Now making the NBA minimum of $385,000, Griffin remembers those days -- and not
> too fondly -- when he had a salary of $1,300 a month.
> "Those were tough times for us," he said. "I'd be here all day telling you
> stories. In the summertime, it would get tough. The CBA was over in
> five-and-a-half or six months. There were six more months (to the year) and I had
> a wife and a baby. So the money would usually run out the first couple of months
> of the summer.
> "I don't know how we got through it. I know it was a blessing, that God was always
> with us. There were times when we were broke, when we didn't have a dime. The Lord
> would always be there and bless us with help from our families. Her mom. My
> parents. We got through it somehow."
> The last few months have been a blur to Griffin, who was the most valuable player
> of the CBA last season. He had tried out and failed with Miami, Golden State,
> Dallas, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. He was even cut by a team in the Philippines.
> Still, he persevered. Even when the Celtics threatened to pull the rug out from
> his summer league invitation at the last minute before thinking better of it.
> "I always believed that the Lord blessed me with the talent to play in the NBA,"
> Griffin, the son of a Kansas preacher, said. "I had such great support. Whenever I
> was down someone would pick me up.
> "I can't say I was sure I'd ever get here. But I know I wasn't about to give up
> trying."
> A starter at small forward through the first 36 games of the season, Griffin went
> down with a badly sprained right ankle on Jan. 8 and missed eight games. The
> Celtics have brought him back slowly, using him off the bench since his return.
> Still, he's averaging 8.9 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, good enough to earn
> that invite to Oakland, where a team of the top rookies of the season will face a
> team of the best from last season.
> "He's really good," said Stephon Marbury after Griffin had smacked the Nets with a
> 16-point, 11-rebound effort earlier this season. "He does the little things to win
> ballgames, the things that don't show up on the stat sheet. He's a guy who I'd
> love to have on my team. He doesn't complain about (not) getting the ball. He just
> goes out and plays."
> As a 25-year-old rookie, Griffin has a bit more perspective on his good fortune
> than some of the league's teeny-bopper freshmen.
> "All I was thinking about last summer was putting on a jersey and being an NBA
> player," he said. "It's all gone so quick. It seems like just yesterday I was in
> the summer league and I turned around and was in an NBA game.
> "I still think to myself sometimes: 'I'm actually here. I'm in the NBA.' It's a
> great feeling. ... Going into NBA arenas, wearing the Celtics uniform, even
> wearing NBA practice sweats is something that took me much longer to achieve. I'm
> enjoying every minute of it. How could I not appreciate everything that has
> happened to me since I came to the Celtics? Playing in the NBA is something I
> could never take for granted."
> Notes: Bothered by a thigh bruise, Marbury did not practice yesterday. Neither did
> Lucious Harris, who was having his sore hamstring re-evaluated. Marbury is
> expected to play tonight.