Darrell Griffith's vertical leap was measured at 48 inches in college. This number circulated through basketball gyms the way legends do — slightly embellished in each retelling, but always carrying the essential truth that the man could fly. He was called Dr. Dunkenstein at Louisville, and the nickname was not hyperbole. It was testimony.
The First Star of Utah Jazz Basketball
Griffith was selected by the Jazz with the second overall pick in the 1980 NBA Draft, arriving in Salt Lake City the year after the franchise relocated from New Orleans. He was 22 years old, fresh off an NCAA championship at Louisville where he had been named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player, and he was exactly what a new franchise in a new city needed: a player exciting enough to make people care.
He won the 1981 NBA Rookie of the Year award. He made the All-Star Game in 1984 — the first Jazz player in Utah history to earn that honor. And he played 11 seasons for the franchise, bridging the gap between the New Orleans era and the beginning of the Stockton-Malone dynasty that would define the organization for the next two decades.
Dr. Dunkenstein and the Three-Point Revolution
Griffith was one of the first NBA players to genuinely embrace the three-point line as a primary weapon. In 1983-84, he led the entire league in three-pointers made — not because he was trying to be revolutionary, but because he understood the math before most of his contemporaries did. The shot that made him famous was the dunk, but the shot that made him valuable was the three.
His playing style was the product of an era when athletic guards who could dunk, score, and hit the occasional three were still considered exotic. By modern standards, Griffith was a prototype — a long, explosive two-guard with range and above-the-rim finishing ability who would fit seamlessly into the pace-and-space systems that define basketball today. In the early 1980s, he was simply the most electric player in Utah.
His career was interrupted by injuries that prevented him from fully realizing the statistical peak his early seasons suggested, but the impact on the franchise was not measured only in points. He was the player who established that the Utah Jazz could attract and develop talent, that Salt Lake City was a place where basketball could matter, and that the organization had a foundation worth building on.
Why #35 Is in the Rafters
The Jazz retired #35 because Darrell Griffith was the first franchise player in Utah history — the first player to make the All-Star Game while wearing a Jazz uniform, the first to give the city a reason to believe the franchise was something real rather than a temporary transplant from New Orleans still waiting to find its identity.
The Stockton-Malone era that followed would be far more famous, far more decorated, and far closer to a championship. But the foundation those years were built on was partially laid by Griffith — by the excitement he generated, the culture he helped establish, and the proof of concept he provided that Jazz basketball in Utah was worth watching. The rafters of the Delta Center hold the numbers of legends, and Dr. Dunkenstein belongs among them.
