Names to Know - Blake Griffin

Names to Know will examine upcoming or rising stars. You'll be hearing these names in the news in the next couple of months and I am here to give you a head start.

The first in the series of "Names to Know" is Oklahoma Sooners college basketball player Blake Griffin. He might have already appeared on the radar of some of those who watch college basketball before March Madness, but for the most part he came into this season as an unknown and will leave in April as the poster boy for NCAA basketball (think EA College Basketball '10 cover boy) and the potential number one pick in the NBA draft.

Griffin or "Blake the Great" as Wikipedia has dubbed him, is a 6'10" 251lbs. Sophomore Power Forward for the Sooners. He has a older brother on the team, Senior Taylor Griffin. If you are not close you might mistake the two, Blake wears jersey 23, while older bro wears 32.

After a high school career where he was named a McDonald's All-American and won the McDonald's All-American Dunk Contest, he chose to attend Oklahoma. In his Freshman year Griffin was able to contribute immediately to the Sooner program. He was named to the Big 12 Conference 1st Team and also the All-Rookie First Team. To put that in perspective, the last Sooner to make "All-Rookie" was Wayman Tisdale in 1983. That is a long time between standout freshman for suffering Sooner fans.

His rise to prominence this year should be no surprise. He is competitive by nature and has a winning attitude. He has won at every level and has had Oklahoma near the top of the weekly rankings all year. An athletic big man who controls, no dominates the glass. Griffin is able to score at will which was demonstrated by his Valentine's Day massacre of Texas Tech, where he scored 40 points and had 23 rebounds. He is only the 3rd player in Oklahoma history to accomplish this feat, joining the afore mentioned Tisdale and Alvin Adams being the others. He not only has the ability to score in bunches, but he is consistent like no other. To date, he has 22 double doubles (points and rebounds) on the season. This is a remarkable accomplishment and bodes well for his NBA career.

Griffin still has room for improvement, his free throws (which every college kid struggles with) and taking cheap fouls, as we have seen him get into some foul trouble during the season. These are things that he can work out over the remaining games of the season and during an offseason where he will end up probably being the number 1 pick and having the dreams of a city riding on his wide shoulder.

Should he decide to come out early (which seems inevitable) , some draftniks have compared him to Charles Barkley (minus the picking up prostitutes hopefully) and Carlos Boozer (minus reneging on a contract that a blind man offers you hopefully). Boozer has averaged 17 points and 10 rebounds during his 7 career. That is a very successful 30 minutes a game and has netted Boozer a max contract and will get him another one at the end of this season.

So when you hear that Oklahoma is one of the final four teams, and is led by Sophomore Blake Griffin, you can turn to your colleague at the water cooler and say "I knew he was good when he won that McDonald's All-American dunk contest" or "When he put up 40/23 on Texas Tech, it cemented him as a number one pick". You're welcome.


With files from;
Draft Express-Blake Griffin
NBADraft.net-Blake Griffin and
Wikipedia-Blake Griffin