A Life of Last Chances

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, November, 2006 | by Pat Borzi

On a night of so many mistakes for Eddie Griffin, this was apparently one of the biggest. In the long run, it proved as damaging to Griffin's already questionable reputation as anything he has done in a basketball career dotted with off-the-court incidents and arrests. It happened in the early morning of March 30, minutes after Griffin, the Roman Catholic High product and a reserve forward for the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves, crashed his 2002 Cadillac Escalade into a parked car outside Santana Foods, a grocery store near the University of Minnesota campus.

Griffin persuaded a store patron named Nick Schlossmacher to cancel a 911 call to Minneapolis police. Griffin apparently didn't realize a Santana Foods employee also had called 911, though it took more than half an hour...