Eddie Griffin Watched Porn, Crashed Car

Eddie Griffin was a good guy with a good heart, but he was also one of the most self-destructive players in NBA history.

Crashing his SUV while enjoying adult entertainment on its dashboard DVD player is among the mildest things he did.

A Bad Ass Kid from Philly

The stereotype that Catholic schoolgirls are a little freakier than most is true in the case of Eddie Griffin.

A product of the all-boys Roman Catholic High School in Philly, Griffin was physically gifted in a “what the hell are you feeding this kid” sense, standing an ogre-sized 6 foot 8 by his senior year.

This size and playing on a back-to-back Catholic League championship team that also featured future NBA journeyman Rasual Butler meant a lot of eyes were on him, making some scouts believe the talented teenage ogre could be good enough to make the jump straight to the NBA.

However, what many didn’t know at the time was that he had a lot of pent-up angst, which he ended up taking out on everyone from coaches to teammates, and eventually, even himself.

A prime example of this was being suspended from Roman Catholic High in his senior year and having to complete his remaining classes from home for socking a teammate square in the face.

It was a sign of things to come.

Even His Momma Couldn’t Get Through to Him

In his first and only season at Tommy Amaker’s Seton Hall, Griffin once again showed up and showed out.

The Power Forward/Center put up averages of nearly 18 points and 11 rebounds per game, while also recording 133 blocks. All of which made NBA scouts soil their Under Armour sweats.

As one reporter described Griffin’s game: “He had a rare combination of a sweet stroke and salty swat.”

Unfortunately, he also had a lack of self-control that showed itself now and then, like the ugly side of Batman supervillain Two-Face.

Immediately following a 78-66 loss at Georgetown on January 6, 2001, Griffin walked up to backup point guard Ty Shine in the locker room and slugged him for not passing him the ball enough during the game. Shine ended up needing several stitches to close the cut.

The Seton Hall Pirates were never the same that season and went out in the first round of the NIT tournament.

A Master Multi-tasker

By the time our basketball prodigy/boxing enthusiast had his infamous crazy car accident outside a Minnesota food store in March 2006, he had tallied several more “infractions.”

Among these were:

• Catching an assault case for (surprise) punching and waving a gun at a woman who caught him with another woman
• An arrest for violating his 18-month probation stemming from the aforementioned assault
• Checking into the Betty Ford Clinic for alcohol abuse treatment, missing the entire 2003-04 season

Not to mention several other more minor offenses, such as multiple missed practices and even a skipped team flight.

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Now on a new team and hoping to resurrect his career, Eddie Griffin couldn’t help himself.

According to a lawsuit filed by the guy whose car Griffin slammed into, Eddie told the victim’s brother, the passenger, that “he was watching pornography in a DVD player mounted on the dashboard of his Cadillac Escalade SUV and was masturbating himself going down the street, when all of a sudden, he shoveled somebody’s car onto the sidewalk.”

This is some next-level multi-tasking that even the police were stumped by.

Someone in an old forum post said henceforth such an act of auto-eroticism shall be dubbed “Pulling a Griffin” and I concur.

In the end, Eddie Griffin never was able to get his career or his life on track. A paradox given that he apparently had no negative influences weighing him down, but no real guidance either.

He tragically passed away in 2007 at only 25 years old in a car collision with an oncoming train.

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