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RETIRED · No. 35

Guard · 1980–91

Darrell Griffith

Dr. Dunkenstein arrived in Salt Lake City as the second overall pick in 1980, fresh off carrying his hometown Louisville Cardinals to their first NCAA title and collecting the Wooden Award. Asked to replace Pete Maravich, he averaged 20.6 points and won Rookie of the Year, then reinvented himself as a shooter — leading the NBA in three-point percentage in 1983–84 and twice setting the single-season record for threes made. All 12,391 of his career points came in a Jazz uniform, and the club retired his number 35 in 1993.

Griffith never really left Louisville. In later years he returned to his alma mater as special assistant to the university president, and then as a university ambassador.

HOW HE CAME & WENTUtah took him second overall in 1980 to replace Pete Maravich at the box office, and he never played for another NBA club. In October 1991 he asked Larry Miller to waive him — he believed he had two or three seasons left and wanted the chance to catch on elsewhere. Nobody signed him.

Full name: Darrell Steven Griffith
Utah Jazz tenure: 1980–91
Position: Guard
Born: 1958, Louisville, Kentucky
Height: 6′4″ (193 cm)
Weight: 190 lb (86 kg)
College: Louisville
Drafted: 1980, 1st round (No. 2), Utah

Signatures in the archive

2013 Panini Pinnacle Essence of the Game Signatures /199
1980-81 Utah Jazz Team-Signed Poster 8x10.5
1982-83 Utah Jazz Signed Album Page (Griffith & Anderson)
1985-86 Utah Jazz Team-Signed Pennant
Utah Jazz Basketball (1987-1988).

No photograph of this signature is online yet.

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With the Jazz

DARRELL GRIFFITH · 1980–91 · PER GAME

SEASON	TEAM	G	MPG	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	FG%	3P%	FT%
1980–81	UTA	81	35.4	20.6	3.6	2.4	1.3	0.5	.464	.192	.716
1981–82	UTA	80	32.5	19.8	3.8	2.3	1.2	0.4	.482	.288	.697
1982–83	UTA	77	36.2	22.2	3.9	3.5	1.8	0.4	.484	.288	.679
1983–84	UTA	82	32.3	20.0	4.1	3.5	1.4	0.3	.490	.361	.696
1984–85	UTA	78	35.6	22.6	4.4	3.1	1.7	0.4	.457	.358	.725
1986–87	UTA	76	24.3	15.0	3.0	1.7	1.3	0.4	.446	.335	.703
1987–88	UTA	52	20.2	11.3	2.4	1.8	1.0	0.1	.429	.275	.641
1988–89	UTA	82	29.0	13.8	4.0	1.6	1.0	0.3	.446	.311	.780
1989–90	UTA	82	17.6	8.9	2.0	0.8	0.8	0.2	.464	.372	.654
1990–91	UTA	75	13.4	5.7	1.2	0.5	0.6	0.1	.391	.348	.756
JAZZ TOTAL	10 SEASONS	765	28.0	16.2	3.3	2.1	1.2	0.3	.463	.332	.707

Season by season, regular season, with this franchise only. More info: Basketball-Reference ↗ · Wikipedia ↗

Did you know

DARRELL GRIFFITH · 9 NOTES

Played all 765 games of his NBA career for this one franchise — his No. 35 is retired.
The nickname Dr. Dunkenstein was a funk tribute — a Parliament-Funkadelic alter ego for basketball's most theatrical dunker.
Lost the entire 1985–86 season to a broken foot and still never wore another uniform — eleven seasons, one team.
Turned down an offer to skip college and sign with the ABA's Kentucky Colonels, choosing hometown Louisville instead.
Broadcaster Hot Rod Hundley coined him a second nickname, The Golden Griff, when his long-range shooting blossomed.
He was Most Outstanding Player of the 1980 Final Four, scoring 23 in Louisville's 59-54 win over UCLA.
Basketball Digest put him and Adrian Dantley on its April 1981 cover as the league's best one-two scoring punch.
He represented Utah in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in both 1984 and 1985.
In his last preseason with the Jazz, in October 1991, he scored fifteen points across five games and sat out the final one against Charlotte.