David Griffin

August 25, 2010
by Jeremy

By Michael Schwartz
Valley of the Suns

All so often general managers obtain their positions because of who they were in the league, with the thinking being that a quality player should know how to put together a quality team. David Griffin did indeed start with the Suns in 1993 … but the only help he gave to Barkley and KJ was as a media relations intern.

He worked his way up the hard way, by putting in long hours and grinding away until he got promoted to the top of the basketball operations department. Griffin came a long way from his media relations days to the past few years when he was the de facto GM when Mike D’Antoni was in charge and then Steve Kerr’s right-hand man the past few years.

Griff, as he’s known, seems to know everything about everything in the NBA. He’s the guy you talk to when you want to know about the draft prospects the team is working out; his preparation is tireless, and he’s also knowledgable about advanced stats.

Griff happened to take a seat next to me for the start of the Suns’ game against the Clippers on Christmas last year. They got off to a rough start and Griff was living and dying with every play, lamenting weak defense when the Clippers scored and bad Phoenix shots when the Suns didn’t. I got nervous just watching Griffin, and this was a game the Suns ended up winning by 31. I can only imagine how he must have been during the West Finals against the Lakers last year.

The only time I got to really sit and talk with Griff was at Media Day last season. He was ridiculously optimistic about the season. He thought the Suns were going to surprise the league and that nobody would be able to match up with some of the offensive lineups they were going to throw out there. I knew at that moment he was either optimistic to a fault or understood this team better than anyone. Well, history now tells us the Suns reeled off a 14-3 start and ended up taking the Lakers to six in the West Finals. Along the way pretty much everything David Griffin said would happen went down. Here are some of his answers in a Q and A format, and here’s a Suns preview story from last year with some telling quotes from Griffin.

When I heard Steve Kerr would be leaving his post as Suns GM, I immediately hoped Griffin would be promoted. That didn’t happen, but to Nuggets fans I can tell you that David Griffin knows the league, he understands new school stats, he’s a good guy and he lives and dies with his team. He’s worked his way up the hard way, and he’s finally ready for this opportunity before him.

Posted on August 25, 2010 at 11:19 pm | filed in | No Comments

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