Darrell Griffith. The first "modern" guard?

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]Found n old SI article on him...seems the ABA offered him a couple million to skip college and jump straight to the pros. He played pickup ball vs the Kentucky Colonels after school and they told the league how good he was...but he turned it down.

Also...




Here is a bit on Red trying to play the Jazz:





But on Wikipedia it says Red was calling GMs talking up DG hoping he went 1-2 so he could get Mchale.

Who knows what happened....one thing is clear though.

If I were a rival GM I wouldnt take Reds calls. Hes sure to **** me and make me look bad in history.[/QUOTE]
I remember DG. Saw him too. KBlaze's analysis is spot on. He may indeed have been the first "modern" guard back them. Ironically, he was playing with a really "old school" type forward in Dantley, who at 6'5, and with basically no jumping ability whatsoever, liked to post up bigger guys, and was basically very successful.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]When I said first modern guard I didnt mean first with the ability of modern guards....I mean the first who played like it. David Thompson was a beast and clearly better than DG. But the first 2 questions asked of a guard today...can he shoot and how athletic is he.

Could Thompson shoot?

All who saw him agree he could shoot his ass off.

Do modern fans mean 15-18 footers when they ask if you can shoot?

Unless its Lebron and a chance to ignore that hes been wetting threes since 19...

No.

I dont like it but thats not what people mean anymore.

Darrell was the first guy with the great athletic ability who also stepped outside often. He may have been the best dunker in the NBA while also shooting more threes than almost every team. You know the NBA is just NBa jam now. Layup/dunk or three.

[B]Darrell might be the only guy from his time who wouldnt need to make any adjustment at all to todays game. He would walk out and take 9 threes first game, pump fake a couple, and bang on a center, and look like he was born in 1990.[/B]

Plenty of others from then could shoot. Few combined the 3 and slashing ability which really marks the modern guard.

Doesnt mean David Thompson wasnt better then and wouldnt be better now. He just wouldnt look like everyone else right away. He would look like a lighter Wade.

[B]DG would look and play in such a way you wouldnt even know he came from 35 years ago.[/B][/QUOTE]
Thanks Bizil and Kblaze for the answers.

I thought DT had a more will to get to the basket than DG had.

I see what you are saying now. It has become a shooting game. I'm sure they had great influence on the draft combines even today, tho I can't say a lot of guards come out Curry/Allen as far as shooting - you are right in that they do look at shooting mechanics and figure shooting will come along. I didn't see at first this was a question.

I scouted for a pretty big HS here - there is less talent discrepancy at that age and a four year projection is the key. The first questions we asked of smaller players or guard skilled players are can they run a team? What's their mental prowess like? Can they distribute the ball? Can they get where they want to? If no they are looked for as a combo guard. His scoring ability is looked at. His athletic/shooting qualities are definitely boosted in upping his potential. Of course the NBA is going to look at it a bit differently but at the same time the roles call for similar type of abilities.

I wouldn't call them the "first" but they are definitely modern.

David Thompson was the first guy who came to mind when i opened this thread. Athletic freak.

What L.Kizzle and tontoz said, David Thompson. Has been called the original Dwayne Wade. Too bad his career fell short to drugs.

I like Darrell Griffith too. Definitely an exciting player.

Griffith wasn't that great of a 3 point shooter. For his career he shot 33% and averaged less than 1 made 3 per game.

His careeer TS of 51% was pretty weak. He didn't get to the foul line much.

:applause:

He played when you could get benched for missing a 3.

He might take 200 when most teams would take 45-50 and half of those are buzzer beaters.

He wasnt standing in a corner waiting for someone to drive and kick. He was dribbling into threes because they were yet to be built into anyones offense.


You can see that he could shoot. And that video at the start was from 1982. He had only made 15 threes in his career before that. The 3 was just a year old when he got there.

He went from never having seen a 3 point line outside being an ABA fan in Kentucky to taking hundreds. He didnt grow up with it. He developed that shot in a couple off seasons.

In his first 3 seasons he shot 63/236 from 3. In the 82-83 season he shot 29% on 138 attempts.

He became a respectable 3 point shooter but by modern standards that's all he was. He was never great.

Too his credit he understood the value of the 3 point shot and tried to exploit it. He just wasnt that good of a shooter.

He only shot 71% from the foul line.

Nobody is talking about how great that video is. Amazing.

[QUOTE=Pointguard]Nobody is talking about how great that video is. Amazing.[/QUOTE]


Personally i can't watch vids at work. Griffith was certainly a good source of highlights. But i think his actual production is getting a bit overrated in this thread.

Even the people who were great by modern or any standard didnt put up numbers suggesting it in those days. Bird went 11/52 the year that video was from.

It just wasnt a big part of the game.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]Even the people who were great by modern or any standard didnt put up numbers suggesting it in those days. Bird went 11/52 the year that video was from.

It just wasnt a big part of the game.[/QUOTE]

I've read that during a player's college tenure that if you took a 3 point shot, you're coaches and teammates would frown upon it. It was probably looked at as a last resort on team offenses early on before it finally started to get utilized more.

[QUOTE=tontoz]Personally i can't watch vids at work. Griffith was certainly a good source of highlights. But i think his actual production is getting a bit overrated in this thread.[/QUOTE]

How am I overrating him? first post:


[QUOTE]He was everything the modern super athlete combo guard is.

Eye popping athletic ability, head scratching shot selection(or so complained some of the league....), and concerns that his team isnt quiiiiite what it could be if it had a more traditional guard.

Despite what all this may suggest [B]my point isnt how great he was....but how great he wasnt[/B].[/QUOTE]

Look at the people I compared him to. Westbrook has only made 70 threes one season of his career. I called him an athletic guard with range but shaky shot selection along the lines of todays athletic combo guards. Rose can shoot btu hardly does numbers. Westbrook I mentioned. I compared him to that kind of player...said he wasnt all that good...

Not like I said he was a superstar or some statistical monster. I said he started the trend that led to modern guards. As you put it....respectable 3 point shooter. He was a respectable 3 point shooter by modern standards when everyone grew up shooting them.

But he was that 30 years ago.

All I was saying.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]Even the people who were great by modern or any standard didnt put up numbers suggesting it in those days. Bird went 11/52 the year that video was from.

It just wasnt a big part of the game.[/QUOTE]


Bird also shot 40% as a rookie and 37.6% for his career as a big man.

In terms of 3 pt attempts DG was certainly ahead of his time. He just wasn't that good of a shooter from anywhere other than near the rim.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]How am I overrating him? first post:




[/QUOTE]


If you read my post you can see that i said he is being overrated in the thread, not necessarily in the OP.