Eddie Griffin runs SUV into a train, dead at 25

As the blues tune laments, some folks are born under a bad sign, and Eddie Griffin was one. Despite all the stupid, wrong-headed things Griffin did to sabotage his basketball career, not to mention his life, over and over again, I never heard one of his teammates or basketball bosses speak of him in anger, only sadness and concern, or, when he was really going well a couple years back, guarded optimism and a sense of quiet but fierce protection. In the locker room, Griffin spoke in a shy monotone, almost never smiled nor grimaced, even when KG was singing his praises from the adjoining locker.

And yet the demons obviously ran deep. On the court, regardless of the advice given him, you could see that Griffin lived to block shots and shoot three-pointers, dedicating himself to those tasks–he was masterful at one, miserable at the other–with an almost autistic focus. He did inexplicable things, like fail to get eye surgery that could have–or at least should have–dramatically improved his game. He was an inscrutable dude. Off the court, the mystery darkened. Griffin’s rap sheet was tragicomically long and sordid. After getting himself booted off his college team as a freshman and bounced off his first, and then second, NBA squad, for various incidents related to drug use, violence and depression, Griffin landed with the Timberwolves. And for a few blissful months it seemed like a mutually beneficial relationship.

But Griffin justifiably endured his share of bad jokes after the incident last off-season, when he was allegedly masturbating at the time of his car accident and, confronted with the damage, offered to replace the damaged car with anything but a Bentley. It is amazing to think that little more than a year later, having pissed away at least three distinct second-chances, Griffin would ignore a railroad intersection warning and crash through the barrier into a moving train at 1:30 in the morning last Friday, creating a conflagration that required dental records to identify the body. The blessing is that he apparently took no one with him on the final ride down.