Duke Recruiting: AJ Griffin’s Family Is Impressive

As you probably know, recently high school junior AJ Griffin committed to Duke.

What most of us probably didn’t realize is how much of a basketball family he comes from and how intelligently his father has handled their development.

Their dad is Adrian Griffin Sr. (AJ is obviously Junior), an NBA and coaching veteran.

In this article Gary Parrish compares him to LaVar Ball, father of Lonzo and Melo, and appreciates how Griffin has dealt with his three kids.

His oldest, Alan, is at Illinois, his daughter Aubrey is at UConn, unquestionably still the finest women’s program and AJ of course is headed for Duke, one of the bluest of the blue blood programs.

Interestingly, Griffin Sr. talks a bit here about the advantages of growing up with a pro athlete as his kids did and how it helps them to get a leg up on their competition.

This is something that Duke has clearly done over the years. We’ve run down the list before but for a partial roster, Coach K has recruited Chris Collins, Grant Hill, Jeff Capel, Bobby Hurley, Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, Kyrie Irving, Jabari Parker, Nolan Smith, Seth Curry, Danny Ferry and others we can’t recall right now. All of them were either children of professional athletes, or coaches, or both, or, in the case of Ferry, son of former player and NBA GM.

We’ll get to know them more soon but they sound like the kind of family that Duke likes to build around.