Photo by Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images
By BILL BUMGARNER
Written for the LSWA
Enshrinement in an athletic Hall of Fame most times requires a high level of success over a lengthy period of time.
During a basketball career which began at Grace King High School in Metairie and ended with a standout 10-year NBA career, Danny Granger certainly checked all the boxes for his path to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2025.
He’s headed to Natchitoches for the June 26-28 Induction Celebration. For event information, visit LaSportsHall.com.
Granger brings with him an impressive resume that illustrates how he excelled on all three levels of basketball competition: high school, college and the professional ranks.
But even though he loved the game, it wasn’t his top preference.
“My favorite sport was really football,” he admitted. “But I look back and I feel lucky just to have been playing basketball the majority of my youth. I felt one of my strengths was passing the ball to other players — which helped me stay on the floor. The game always drove me to get better. For me, playing basketball was surreal.”
“He was so coachable,” said former Grace King head coach Jeryl Fischtziur. “Sometimes he would pass the ball to teammates too often. He just wanted to get others involved in the game.
“He worked the hardest at practice,’ he added. “He would arrive early and stay late.”
In high school, the 6-foot-8 Granger was tall enough to play center and skilled enough to shoot from outside from the forward position.
A preseason nomination to the prestigious McDonald’s All-American team going into his senior year, he averaged 24.3 points, 12.0 rebounds and 5.5 blocks before heading to the next level.
His initial college choice was Yale, but the Ivy League school did not offer civil engineering – which was to be his major.
So, he and teammate Michael Suggs chose Bradley University where they stayed for two years before deciding — long before the transfer portal – to head to the University of New Mexico.
Granger’s sturdy 230-pound frame provided a strong presence inside and he made the most of it, averaging more than 7.0 rebounds a game in all four of his collegiate seasons.
But he also was able to step out and impact games with his scoring ability.
He racked up 19.2 points a game as a sophomore at Bradley, then averaged 19.5 and 18.8 points in his two seasons at New Mexico.
Granger averaged in double figures in all four of his collegiate seasons and finished his 95-game career with a 16.7 average while shooting 49.6% from the field – including 36.6% from beyond the 3-point arc. He averaged 21.6 points a game in the postseason.
In the 2005 NBA Draft, Granger was a first-round pick (17th overall) of the Indiana Pacers.
He played a total of 10 NBA seasons, starring for the Pacers for 8½ seasons (2006-14) – making the All-Star game in 2009 — before finishing his career with the Los Angeles Clippers (2014) and Miami Heat (2015).
Granger’s pro career got off to a bit of a slow start, but it didn’t take long for him to become a staple in the Pacers’ lineup as a small forward.
After averaging a pedestrian 7.5 points as a rookie in the 2005-06 season while playing with established high-scoring veterans like Ron Artest, Peja Stojakovic, Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal, Granger set a course that would see him become one of the team’s rising stars over the next few seasons.
His star rose quickly when Granger worked hard and accepted the role he was asked to play. That meant doing things the right way on and off the court and being an unselfish teammate.
Those were some of the things that impressed Mike Wells, a former Indianapolis Star sportswriter who was the Pacers beat writer during Granger’s tenure with the club.
Wells said the biggest thing was Granger’s decision to follow the older players on the court, not off the court, at a time when some Pacers were in the papers and newscasts for the wrong reasons.
“Danny was always there before practice working on his shooting with the other perimeter players,” Wells said, “and he was always out there doing more work after practice.”
It certainly showed up when Granger improved his scoring average by more than five points in each of the next three seasons.
That stretch culminated in what would be a career-high 25.8 points in the 2008-09 season. That year, he earned a starting spot on the Eastern Conference all-star team.
Wells said he recalled the night Granger pretty much stamped his ticket for the all-star contest, at least in the eyes of then-Pacers coach Jim O’Brien.
After Granger buried a 3-pointer from 27 feet out with 0.2 seconds left to give his team a 113-110 road win over the Phoenix Suns on Jan. 7, 2009, Wells said he hurriedly filed his story and made his way to O’Brien’s news conference.
“I don’t remember if these were his exact words,” Wells said, “but Jim said, ‘Danny is officially an all-star. A lot of people have been questioning if he was, but he is an all-star.’”
All Granger did that night was score 37 points, going 13 of 27 from the field with a 5 of 11 showing from beyond the arc, and added five rebounds, six assists and four steals. He also tied the game at 110-all with a 20-foot jumper with 34.9 seconds remaining.
The rest of that season was just as productive.
In becoming the first Pacers player to average more than 25 points a game since the 1976-77 season, Granger was recognized as the NBA’s Most Improved Player.
His stock continued to rise and he proved his worth as a volume scorer in averaging 24.1, 20.5 and 18.7 points a game over the next three seasons.
In a five-year stretch from 2008-12, Granger was recognized as one of the league’s elite players when he averaged 21.6 points and 5.4 rebounds in 350 games. In doing so, he became one of the Pacers’ more reliable players and a fan favorite in Indianapolis.
The rest of the league started to take notice as well, especially when he turned into an elite two-way player with his defensive tenacity matching his offensive abilities.
When the Pacers traded Artest to the Sacramento Kings midway through Granger’s rookie season and injuries started to take a toll on O’Neal, there was little help for Granger when his career began taking off.
He was ready, but after a productive six-year stretch, injuries hit.
Foot, knee and calf issues limited Granger to 76 games with just eight starts over the next three seasons, essentially leading to the end of his career.
When a calf injury forced him to miss the first 25 games of what turned out to be his final season with the Pacers, Granger finally made his season debut on Dec. 20, 2013.
He entered the game in the first quarter to a standing ovation and the crowd chanted his name after his first basket of the night – a 3-pointer – early in the fourth quarter of a rout of the Houston Rockets.
Pacers fans again showed their love for Granger, who was seated at courtside for Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals with the New York Knicks in Gainbridge Fieldhouse last month, got a huge ovation when he was shown on the arena’s video boards.
As of this season, Granger, who played in 544 games with 425 starts for the Pacers, was still sixth in franchise history in scoring with 9,571 points and was second in both made 3-pointers (964) and 3-point attempts (2,526).
In 2020, perennial NBA All-Star Paul George was asked how good Granger could have been had his career not been cut short by injuries at the age of 31. He and Granger were teammates during George’s first four seasons in the league.
“Grange was a bucket, man,” George said. “Grange was a bucket … he could do it with the best of them. He just knew how to score.
“It was no skill work, but he knew how to play. He knew how to get a bucket. I learned a lot from Danny just sitting back and observing. He was just a good, all-around dude.”
Though he was a highly-decorated player in the college and pro ranks, Granger said his latest honor really resonates.
“When I got the call about the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, it was great news,” he said. “This induction is a privilege.”
Granger, 42, currently resides in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife Dianna and their three children. He and his father Danny Sr. own a construction business with his high school teammate Suggs as an employee.
“Danny Sr. is like a brother to me,” said Danny Jr. “We are very close. He’s self-taught in the construction business. I have been blessed to have had a job in which I received millions of dollars and was able to do something I loved.
“My life has been a wild ride.”
And he’s excelled at all of it.
