{"id":83437,"date":"2024-06-28T11:05:13","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T15:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=83437"},"modified":"2024-06-28T11:05:13","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T15:05:13","slug":"new-houston-rockets-player-looking-to-redeem-his-value-aj-griffin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/28\/new-houston-rockets-player-looking-to-redeem-his-value-aj-griffin\/","title":{"rendered":"New Rockets Player Looking To Redeem Himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a solid rookie season in 2022-23, AJ Griffin<\/a> has been traded just one season later by the Atlanta Hawks. \u00a0Prior to the second round of the 2024 NBA Draft, it was announced that the 20-year-old Griffin would be dealt to the Houston Rockets<\/a>. In return, the Hawks would receive the 44th pick in yesterday\u2019s second round. The trade was later expanded to three teams<\/a> after Atlanta traded the 44th pick and cash to the Miami Heat<\/a> for the 43rd selection.<\/p>\n

\n

ESPN Sources: The Atlanta Hawks are trading F AJ Griffin to the Houston Rockets for the 44th pick in Thursday\u2019s NBA Draft. Griffin, 20, was a 2022 first-round pick out of Duke. pic.twitter.com\/IhjHKnCxCd<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not turning 21 years old until August 25, there is still hope Griffin can rebound from a wildly disappointing 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n

New Houston Rockets Player Looking To Redeem His Value<\/h2>\n

AJ Griffin\u2019s Value Torpedoed In Season Two Causing Atlanta To Trade Him<\/h3>\n

Griffin was selected with the 16th overall pick in the 2022 season by the Hawks. He is the son of Adrian Griffin<\/a>, who played nine seasons in the NBA and was fired as the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> head coach in late January. The younger Griffin averaged 10.4 points and shot 44.7% from three-point range during his one season at Duke. The 6-6 small forward continued to be a marksman during his rookie season of 2022-23. Playing in 72 games (12 starts), Griffin averaged 8.9 points, 2.1 rebounds, and 1.0 assists. Attempting 3.6 threes per contest, he connected on 39.0% of his tries from deep. He received the third-most votes<\/a> among rookies who did not make either of the All-Rookie teams.<\/p>\n

The 2023-24 season certainly wasn\u2019t a step forward for Griffin. Injuries and poor play limited him to just 20 games. After averaging 19.5 minutes as a rookie, Griffin\u2019s playing time dipped down to 8.6 minutes per night. His per-game averages were a pedestrian 2.4 points, 0.9 rebounds, and 0.3 assists. The shooting prowess he showed as a rookie fell off a cliff. He went just 10-39 (25.6%) from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

Playing Time May Be Hard To Come By With Houston<\/h3>\n

As already mentioned, Griffin isn\u2019t yet 21 years old. There should be plenty of time to redeem his value as a viable NBA player. It\u2019s just not certain he finds the playing time to do so with the Rockets. Houston had a 19-win improvement going from 22-60 in 2022-33 to 41-41 in 2023-24. They also have plenty of young and talented wing players that could block Griffin\u2019s path to playing time.<\/p>\n

21-year-old Amen Thompson<\/a> was selected fourth overall in the 2023 NBA Draft. Superb on the defensive end, he was named to the All-Rookie Second Team. Selected 20th overall in the 2023 NBA Draft, Cam Whitmore<\/a> exhibited the much-needed skill of putting the ball in the hoop. He averaged 12.3 points as a rookie in just 18.7 minutes per outing. Griffin has received minutes at the four as well, but Houston already has recent draft picks Jabari Smith Jr.<\/a> and Tari Eason<\/a> taking the minutes there. While Dillon Brooks<\/a> is more of a veteran at 28 years old, he started 72 games for Houston at small forward last season.<\/p>\n

Still, Houston did not have to give up much for Griffin. It\u2019s worth a flyer to give him a look, even if he\u2019s just used as a depth piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a solid rookie season in 2022-23, AJ Griffin has been traded just one season later by the Atlanta Hawks. \u00a0Prior to the second round of the 2024 NBA Draft, it was announced that the 20-year-old Griffin would be dealt to the Houston Rockets. In return, the Hawks would receive the 44th pick in yesterday\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":83466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31,4,1608,62],"tags":[4521,49040,3824],"class_list":["post-83437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rockets","category-hawks","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-2022-nba-draft","tag-2024-nba-draft","tag-aj-griffin"],"modified_by":"Jacob Stephens, Associate Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}