Mason-Griffin defiant heading into draft
Published: 6/23/2010 10:52 PM
Last Modified: 6/23/2010 10:52 PM
Willie Warren will be drafted tomorrow night. So will Tiny Gallon, quite possibly by New Jersey at the top of round two.
Tommy Mason-Griffin, the third Oklahoma underclassman to declare after last season, likely won't hear his name called inside Madison Square Garden.
It doesn't sound as though he will be fazed.
"At the end of the day, it's my decision," Mason-Griffin told the Houston Chronicle. "I just use that for motivation to prove people wrong. A lot of people said I'm not going to get drafted and I'm not going to do this or that, and why not wait until next year. I'm ready now."
It is a decision Mason-Griffin made before last season even ended. He waited until late March to officially declare, but started making plans along those lines a month earlier.
"Oklahoma was a great place," he told the Chronicle. "I loved the fans and loved everything about it. School work was just not in my comfort zone. I just had to get out of there with the season I had. I probably let people down, but at the same time, it's my life and that's what people don't understand."
As to Mason-Griffin's absence from the mock drafts...
"I feel like it's all hype and political," he said. "I just look at it like I used to look at it in high school when I felt I should have been a top-10, top-five-ranked point guard in the nation: That hype eventually runs out. There's going to come a time when you're really going to have to prove yourself, and that's just how I always looked at those types of rankings and lists...
"I don't get mad. I get motivated."
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
