It wasn’t until the 15th game of this season that AJ Griffin made his first collegiate start.
After years of battling through injury and adversity, the star freshman could finally show off all the reasons that NBA teams are enticed by his abilities. His contributions to the Blue Devils, in recent weeks at least, have arguably ranked with the likes of teammates Wendell Moore Jr. and Trevor Keels, despite eclipsing 20 minutes in just two of the first 10 games.
But minutes or stats never defined Griffin. The journey he has taken and the fight he has displayed tells more about the player he is than any box score.
“What he’s done, working his tail off all season long. Never complained for one second, worked as hard if not harder than anybody in our team,” head-coach-in-waiting Jon Scheyer said on Griffin earlier this season.
Griffin’s path was never straightforward. In recent years, it seemed as though he was always fighting an uphill battle when it came to his basketball career. His unique skill set put him on the radars of top college basketball programs from around the country early on in his high school career. And it only took one and a half varsity seasons to receive offers from college hoops blue bloods like Duke, Kansas and Kentucky.
His story began in Dallas, where AJ was born to NBA travelman Adrian Griffin, who was playing with the Houston Rockets at the time of his second son’s birth. Adrian finished his solid professional career having played nine seasons in the NBA with five different teams. Now, he holds an assistant coach’s position, most notably winning an NBA title with the Toronto Raptors back in 2019.
Adrian’s coaching paralleled extremely well with his parenting. He went 3-for-3 in turning kids into collegiate hoopers with AJ’s older brother, Alan, having played for Illinois and Syracuse before turning pro in the G-League, and his sister Aubrey currently playing at one of the top women’s basketball programs in the UConn Huskies.
Despite being the youngest of the four Griffin family ballers, AJ is trending towards being the first in the group to be drafted, and quite the draft prospect he is becoming.
Injury unrest
The younger Griffin’s career was all lined up from the time he entered high school. It took less than one complete high school season for him to get his first Division I offer from St. Johns. After that, the rest started flowing in, ultimately leading up to June 15, 2019, when he received offers from UCLA, Vanderbilt, Michigan, Villanova and of course, Duke.
Injuries, however, threw a massive wrench in the development of the young talent.
Griffin’s sophomore season, although magnificent, was hindered for the large part of the year while he battled a nagging foot injury. The then-16-year-old played in just 16 of 30 games that season.
In January 2020, just a handful of games into his junior year with Archbishop Stepinac, the future McDonald’s All-American went down with a knee sprain that sidelined him for the remainder of the season. His former coach, Pat Massaroni, used the word “gruesome” to describe the incident. Griffin recovered in time for the postseason before COVID-19 cut the year short, but that play was just the next stop in a series of injuries that kept the 6-foot-6 forward from playing the game he loves.
The next year looked to be a fresh start for Griffin in his senior campaign. But before the season could even get underway, the New York native picked up an ankle injury that sidelined him for his entire year. He began rehabbing down in Florida in preparation for Duke.
“I always stay motivated, just because it’s an opportunity I want to take advantage of. Just playing at the best college, with the best coach there is, in my opinion,” Griffin said about his motivation through recovery in a 2021 interview with The Athletic. “And I just feel it’s an opportunity most kids don’t get, so I want to fully take advantage of it. That’s how I’ll stay motivated.”
The five-star recruit’s high school career involved just one full season—in which he helped his team to a Catholic High School Athletic Association title—and two partial seasons, during which he was able to display a reinforcement of the skills he had in his arsenal.
The final piece to this setback puzzle was the infamous knee injury that the freshman picked up just before Duke’s season was ready to start. Originally, no one knew the extent of the injury, and it was speculated that Griffin would miss the start of the season. But to the surprise of the public, Griffin was ready for the season-opener against Kentucky, suiting up and playing 11 minutes in the Blue Devils’ 79-71 win.
Emerging from mystery
The unknown surrounding Griffin leading up to his first Duke appearance was a massive, obnoxious elephant in the room. Fans and analysts alike wanted to remain faithful that he was who Krzyzewski and Scheyer picked him out to be, but the truth of the matter is that no one could say for certain what would happen when Griffin touched the floor of a competitive match for the first time in nearly two years.
Originally, his minutes were restricted and easing him back into play was a focus of Krzyzewski’s plan. Griffin played 11, 10 and six minutes in the Blue Devils’ first three games, and then saw a nice jump to 16 and 21 in the following two against Gardner-Webb and Lafayette, respectively. The Lafayette matchup was seen as a coming-out party for the young star, as he dropped 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting and 4-of-6 on 3-pointers.
However, the Blue Devils next two matchups against Gonzaga and Ohio State saw Griffin’s minutes drop to a mere six and two, respectively, indicating that Krzyzewski didn’t have the faith to give the forward major minutes against high-level competition just yet.
When ACC play rolled around, however, that attitude had changed. Griffin was on the floor for more time than he wasn’t across the team’s first three conference matchups.
“[Griffin] has worked his butt off…since the Ohio State game, every day, individual work, extra [workouts]. And he's climbing,” Krzyzewski said following the Jan. 4 matchup against Georgia Tech. “... he responded. And he'll continue to get better. He's done a really good job.”
And then, the moment that every high school hooper dreams of rolled around: the first college start. An unexpected lineup change prior to Duke’s game at Wake Forest took Jeremy Roach out of the starting five and opened a spot for Griffin.
And that paid off. Griffin hit season highs in minutes (36), points (22) and shots made (eight, on just 11 attempts). He was a huge contributor to the team’s tough road victory that night, including a sweet step-back 3-ball to beat the halftime buzzer, and showed just what he was capable of with enough minutes.
“Man, there’s a lot I could say about AJ. He works so hard,” Moore said following the Jan. 12 win. “[If the media could see] the work that he puts in day in and day out, nobody would be surprised at what he's doing now.”
Griffin has fit into this Duke team like a glove. His shooting ability complements the games of his slashing teammates Paolo Banchero and Wendell Moore Jr. perfectly, and he’s proven to be one of the most consistent 3-point shooters in recent program history. His current 50% 3-point percentage is 7.9 points higher than JJ Redick’s best shooting season at Duke.
Looking to the future
Following his dad, the NBA is certainly appearing in Griffin’s crystal ball.
In high school, Griffin easily nabbed a five-star recruit rating early on in his career. By graduation, he was ESPN’s No. 9 overall recruit in the class of 2021 and the No. 1 small forward. The hype was real, but perhaps no indicator was greater than some of the earliest 2022 NBA mock drafts, some of which had Griffin as high as the No. 5 overall pick.
Griffin has the chance to be a part of the first Duke team ever with five first-round draft picks and the first NCAA team since 2010 Kentucky. Paolo Banchero has been a lock for a top-three spot since before the season started, and with Keels, Moore and Mark Williams all having impressive seasons thus far, they also find their names in the first round of many reputable draft boards.
Griffin’s absence from the starting lineup hurt his draft position early on in the season, but his recent surge has him rising on the big boards once again. His explosion of 22 points on 5-of-5 3-point shooting at Louisville was just the most recent fuel to Griffin’s NBA hype.
“He's just a rising star. He's not a rising good player. He's a rising star,” Krzyzewski said following the performance.
There’s still plenty of season left, and plenty of big stages—with two matchups against North Carolina, the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament—for Griffin to further re-instate himself as a top pick, showcasing the unbelievable athleticism and ability that has flashed throughout the season.
At this point in his Duke career, the mystery is working in Griffin’s favor. The world has seen enough of him to know there is game-breaking potential within, but not too much as to where anyone could have him figured out just yet. Griffin has become the definition of “the sky is the limit.”
“But really the most important thing is I'm proud of him. I'm proud of how he just stuck to everything,” Moore said. “He’s stuck through the adversity that he’s had, now he's coming into the player that we all knew he could be.”
Editor's note: This article is one of many in The Chronicle and The Daily Tar Heel's annual rivalry edition. Find the rest here.
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