Duke Sucks?
When I was asked to join this blog, I was told it was for the purpose of providing a bit more diversity of opinion. They had been looking for a mushy leftish libertarian type and I apparently fit the bill. So ideologically, I’m a bit of a token, and I knew that going in. I had no idea, however, that I was also going to be a Duke fan on the home turf of a group of avid Duke haters. But that’s okay. I’ve been a Duke fan for longer than most of these young whippersnappers have been walking upright, and I can take the heat. So with tongue planted firmly in cheek and my feet planted in the hallowed ground of Krzyzewski-ville, I offer up a few undisputed facts that prove that Duke does not, in fact, suck.
* Duke has the 5th most wins all time in college basketball, behind only Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA and North Carolina.
* In 25 years at Duke, Coach K has won 12 national coach of the year awards from national publications and organizations.
* In 25 years at Duke, Coach K has led Duke to 22 NCAA appearances, and since 1984 has only failed to make the tournament during the year in which he missed almost the entire season.
* Coach K has led the team to 10 final fours and three national championships, including the first back-to-back championships since UCLA’s run in the 60s and 70s.
* In the last 25 years, Duke has had 7 national players of the year, 5 national defensive players of the year, and 21 all-american players.
* Duke has won 6 of the last 7 ACC championships, a run not even accomplished by Dean Smith’s great North Carolina teams.
* In Coach K’s tenure, every single 4 year player at Duke has earned his bachelor’s degree from the university. He’s so adamant about this that he refused to put the banner for the 1992 National Championship up in Cameron Indoor Stadium until one player returned in the summer to finish the two courses he needed to get his degree.
* On top of all of that, Coach K, as a former West Point graduate and Army Captain, has been a major supporter of our military men and women. He recently paid the costs out of his own pocket to have 5000 sets of Christmas gifts delivered to our troops in Iraq. He also talked one of Duke’s sponsors, Alltel, into sending 2500 phone cards to a batallion led by one of his former players so the soldiers could call home more often.
I know being a Duke fan is like being a Yankees fan, but I was a fan before they became the most dominant team in the sport for the last 15 years. And the fact is that the hatred of Duke is motivated solely by jealousy. Everyone wants to be where Duke is, on top of the world of college basketball as the dominant program since the days of John Wooden. Because we know that, we Duke fans feed off the hatred of others. Bring it on, boys. We’ll swat away your hatred like a Shelden Williams blocked shot and we’ll bury it like a JJ Redick 3-pointer. And yes, I fully expect to get a more impassioned response to this post than anything I’ve ever written on gay marriage. Life, after all, is a metaphor for basketball.
32 Responses to “Duke Sucks?”
I’m a Duke fan, after Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Sooner born (not) and Sooner bred, when I die I’ll be Sooner dead.
and my feet planted in the hollow ground of Krzyzewski-ville
I think perhaps you meant hallowed ground?
Hollow ground, indeed.
“Duke sucks” is a bit of a common phrase around Indiana, much in the same way “I hate the Yankees” is commonplace among baseball fans. You acknowledge this, and since you’re a longtime fan, you get a pass. The hordes of bandwagoners don’t though.
Also, I’d just like to point out that IU has two more national championships than Duke and many more tournament appearances.
Eric wrote:
Um, yes. Let’s just change that and pretend it never happened. In fact, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Yeah, that’ll work (hitting himself in the forehead for that act of literary barbarism).
In Oklahoma it is “Texas Bites” for which there is even a ditty, of which I will graciously spare you.
And I’ve been a Yankees fan since the 4th grade, which was in, well, a while ago.
Josh wrote:
Yes, IU has two more national championships, but the first two were over 50 years ago and the last was in 1987. In the intervening 18 years, Duke has 3. As far as tournament appearances go, it is wrong to say that IU has “many more”, as they only have two more (32-30, with IU missing this year and Duke making it). But even with 2 fewer NCAA tournaments, Duke has 5 more final four appearances than IU (Coach K alone has 2 more than all IU coaches combined). And Coach K alone has more NCAA tournament wins (64) than IU has in its entire history (58), which explains why Duke’s winning percentage in the tournament is so much higher (.762 vs .682) and why Duke has 19 more wins in the tournament than IU does. Interestingly enough, even my alma mater, MSU, has a higher winning percentage in the tournament than IU has.
All of this is just trash talk, of course. I have great respect for the Indiana basketball program, and I think Bobby Knight is one of the all time greats as a coach in any sport. If I had to choose a single coach to draw up a gameplan to beat a team in a game that decided whether I would live or die, I’d choose Coach Knight. Give him a week to prepare for anyone and he’ll find a way to beat them. I think it’s sad that his ego and temper have so often undermined his career because by any other measure, he is the epitome of what every coach should be. And he was an enormous influence on Coach K, of course, having coached him at West Point and hired him for his first coaching job.
I should also note that Coach K has great respect for IU as well. After Duke lost to the Hoosiers in the 2002 NCAA tournament, he made a point of going on to the IU team bus after the game to congratulate the team and wish them luck. As much as we fans enjoy the trash talking – and this is the perfect time of the year for all of us to engage in it – most of the kids and the coaches like each other and respect each other. And fans of both Duke and IU should be very proud of the tradition of excellence at both schools, both on the court and off. At both schools the players graduate on time, and at neither school has there ever been even a serious NCAA violation. And no, these kind words have nothing to do with the fact that Lynn grew up in Indiana and will kick my butt if I speak ill of the Hoosiers. LOL.
I should also say that you Hoosier fans should join us Dukies in hating the eternally evil Tar Heels, since they stole Sean May away from you and turned him into a star. Imagine how much better IU would have been this year with May in the middle. The guy is an absolute beast. He had 26 points and 24 boards against Duke last week. Ouch.
Virtually all of his players who have gone on to the NBA have been big-time busts, with the exception of Grant Hill (although he has been injured so often). Christian Laettner? Johnny Dawkins? Sure, they ended up being decent NBA players, but nowhere near the perennial all-stars they should have been based on talent. And what about Danny Ferry? Mike Dunleavy? I would seriously question his coaching and inspirational ability to have his players succeed at the next level. On the other hand, look at whom Dean Smith has turned out–Michael Jordan, James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Vince Carter, Antwan Jameson, Brad Daugherty–a whole team of all-star, Hall of Fame types.
Also, although Coach K may indeed teach his players to be good people, he obviously doesn’t teach street smarts. Can someone please explain how anyone smart enough to graduate from Duke could be dumb enough to get into a car without putting on a seat belt (Bobby Hurley) or ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet (Jason Williams)? Those two cost their teams fortunes because of their errors. In short, the Duke basketball factory is much less efficient than North Carolina’s or a number of other schools. Evidently, something’s missing from Coach K’s regimen.
I forgot about Elton Brand (although, when he came into the league, I honestly thought he was going to be the next Karl Malone; he hasn’t really gotten better). And Ben Gordon is a strong rookie of the year candidate. But that “P” word–(unfulfilled) potential–hangs over the heads of too many Coach K prodigies.
I don’t know how Ben Gordon got into the last post, but I think that the author was under the impression that Gordon was from Duke. He was not, Gordon went to UConn.
Luol Deng, who the Bulls also drafted last year and who has some very solid potential of his own, was in fact a Dukie, although I’m pretty sure he only played at Duke for 1 year before turning pro.
Oh, and Gordon is the ROY.
No one wrote:
All the more incredible, then, that he has managed to dominate the college game for so long with players who couldn’t make it in the pros. One can scarcely imagine how he built such a powerhouse with his closest rival stocked with hall of fame player after hall of fame player. Coach K is a college coach, not an NBA coach. His job is to get his team to win, and he does so better than almost anyone who has ever coached the game. By the way, Dawkins also had an injury end his very promising pro career only a couple years into it.
I doubt that wearing one’s seat belt has anything to do with intelligence. I know lots of very smart people who don’t wear them (I didn’t myself until I got into an accident many years ago). What I am certain of, however, is that it’s not a college basketball coach’s job to teach kids to wear their seat belt, or wear a helmet, or for that matter to floss their teeth or say their prayers before they go to bed. They were grown men, fully responsible for their own behavior. I’m sure you could find athletes from any school who later in life don’t wear their seat belts or helmets; it’s hardly a reflection on the school or the basketball program.
By the way, Ben Gordon didn’t play for Duke, he played for UConn. Luol Deng, however, did play for Duke and he’s also having a tremendous rookie year. You could also add Corey Maggette, a 20-5-5 guy every night, and Elton Brand’s 20 and 10 to the list. Chris Duhon has also had a very good rookie year for the Bulls, much better than most people expected from a second round pick.
Except that the things that you mention as “missing” are simply not his responsibility. His job is to coach Duke basketball, to create a program that wins year after year. Since, by your own admission, he did so in competition with an archrival that had staggering talent year after year, it makes it all the more incredible that he managed to do so with so many players who were dominant under his leadership but didn’t have the raw talent to compete in the pros. I’d say that makes him even better as a college basketball coach, wouldn’t you?
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Sorry about the Ben Gordon mixup; I got him confused with Deng.
I will say, however, that the ex-Dukies who have been flops have been drafted just as high as the North Carolinans who became stars. Look at the players taken after Danny Ferry (second overall in ‘89) who had far more successful NBA careers–Sean Elliot, Glen Rice, Tim Hardaway, just to name a few. And in ‘92, although Laettner was taken behind the two biggest prizes (O’Neal and Mourning), he was still the third pick in what was considered one of the deepest drafts ever. The guy was drawing comparisons to Larry Bird, and not just because he was white.
What seems particularly odd is that, if Coach K is so good at making “mediocre” playerrs into college (if not pro) superstars, then, one, he must be doing a terrible job recruiting, because, with Duke’s overwhelming success, the school should be an easy sell to top-notch high school talent, and, two, he must be deceiving NBA scouts who think his players have ability but are actually overachievers who don’t have the talent to succeed at the next level. I find the latter proposition especially odd, given that we’re talking a nearly-20-year timeframe for Dukies’ being high picks.
The bottom line is that Coack K wins because he has talent, and he should be credited for getting his four-years to graduate (although there have been an increasing number of players not sticking around that long). Nonetheless, as much as one wants to idealize about college basketball’s “traditional purpose,” it has become a farm system for the NBA, nothing less. In other words, it IS part of Coach K’s job to turn out players who are ready for the next level–not just skills-wise, but emotionally, as well. But, instead, he turns out spoiled brats, such as Laettner and Williams, who are immediately resented by their NBA teammates because of their air of superiority about having gone to Duke and “won big in college.” Maybe it’s not Coach K’s fault, but he at least could have given them sone parting advice on modesty and respect for one’s opponent. Dean Smith, by contrast, turned out BOTH good human beings and good pro players. In other words, he did both sides of his job.
funny you mention Shelden Williams, because he is the epitome of Coach K’s b.s. double standard. If Williams, who participated in a sexual assault when he was a sr. in high school, had gone to any other school, his story would be all over the news, he’d lose his scholarship, and he’d be a pariah. Instead, he hides under Coach K’s media immunity and uses the Duke ‘get out of jail free’ card to save his career.
Redick is another good one – caught with weed in his dorm room freshman year, he got a slap on the wrist.
Exposing Duke is usually left to Wake Forest and Maryland students, which probably explains why the truth is so hard to find.
There are dozens of examples. If the Dukies around here keep it up, I will be forced to use them all.
All fair points. As an Alabama graduate (think football), I can appreciate Duke fans. But please tell J.J. Reddick to quit reading that poetry on Sportscenter?
It’s not so much that Duke, the team sucks, for they clearly do not, but the amount of attention that they receive is not proportionate to the amount they deserve, and for that reason people are sick of hearing about how great blah blah blah they are. You are by this very post feeding the masses. Maybe that’s what you want. But it’s clear that the MSM is Duke Obsessed.
No one wrote:
I’m always baffled by this idea. Do you actually think that Coach K somehow damages kids so they can’t be good pros? Both his offensive system (motion offense) and his defensive system (aggressive man to man) are ideally suited to training for the pros. The offense in particular is built around the idea of adapting to the skills of the players on the court. Dean Smith’s offense, on the other hand, was always viewed as holding players back – the running joke was that Dean Smith was the last defender to hold Michael Jordan to under 20 points. Yet as you note, an extraordinary number of good pros came out of his program. But I’ve never heard a plausible argument for some causal connection in either case.
If you look at the players in the league right now from both schools, they actually compare pretty favorably. Here are the Carolina players:
Antawn Jamison – Consistent, lower level all star player
Vince Carter – Don’t like his attitude, but he’s an all-star talent and big star
Jerry Stackhouse – tremendous talent, horrible attitude
Rasheed Wallace – has resurrected himself in Detroit as a solid, above average role player
George Lynch – journeyman benchwarmer
Scott Williams – journeyman benchwarmer
Brendan Haywood – major underachiever given his physical skills, part time starter
Jeff McInnis – journeyman, has salvaged his reputation with a few years of good behavior to be a part time starter
And now the Duke players in the NBA:
Grant Hill – Perennial all-star, likely hall of famer despite missing 3 years with the ankle problem
Carlos Boozer – major overachiever, consistent 18 and 9 guy. Would be an all star in the east.
Elton Brand – 20 pts, 10 boards, 2 blocks and 3 assists per game. Just below all star level.
Corey Maggette – 22 pts, 6 boards, 3 assists and 1 steal
Christian Laettner – certainly an underachiever, but solid journeyman who has started everywhere he went
Shane Battier – solid, versatile role player and great team player, which is really all anyone figured he would be
Mike Dunleavy – has shown flashes, but hasn’t lived up to expectations
Dahntay Jones – solid role player, again all anyone expected
Duhon and Deng – both have had terrific rookie years, Deng looks like a future star
And that’s not counting Jason Williams, who would almost certainly be a star today if not for his injury. Had the earliest triple double in a career in league history as a rookie.
So the bottom line is that the idea that Carolina turns out great pros while Duke turns out bad ones is just no longer true. Even at its height, it was based primarily on one group of players from the late 70s/early 80s – Jordan, Worthy and Perkins. Beyond that, like most good programs, they’ve had solid players (Dougherty), mediocre journeymen (Montross) and total busts (Shammond Williams).
Petronius wrote:
You’re presuming things that can’t be presumed. Williams was accused of this while the team was on a trip to Ohio. The police investigated the complaint, didn’t file any charges, and the alleged victim retracted her story. In this country, we do presume people to be innocent until proven guilty and in this case, he was never even charged. That hardly justifies claiming that he assaulted someone as if you actually know what happened. And do you really think that Duke managed to manipulate the policy in Ohio?
Again, you don’t quite have your facts straight. It wasn’t Redick’s room, it was someone else’s room. And no weed was ever found, only an RA reporting that they smelled weed coming from a room, and when the campus police got there, JJ was in that room. The student judicial board investigated it and exonerated him. Now, does that mean he wasn’t smoking pot? No idea. Maybe he was. Hell, when I was in college I smoked so much pot that the Zig Zag man had a tattoo of me on his arm. If the worst you can come up with is a college kid who might have been smoking pot, that would pretty much kill every program, wouldn’t it?
I do not claim that no Duke player has ever done anything wrong. Duhon was cited for underage drinking his freshman year. Shocked? Only if you’ve never set foot on a college campus, for crying out loud. Christian Laettner is an arrogant SOB that even his friends don’t seem to like much. And I have no doubt whatsoever that you’ll find the same things going on around the Duke campus that you find going on around any major campus – $50 handshakes from alumni, bills for meals mysteriously getting lost on their way to the table, summer jobs at absurd rates of pay. You can find that absolutely everywhere.
my bad. she wasn’t a high schooler, she was a 19 year old Ohio woman. Williams was thrown off his traveling team and suspended from high school, but never charged. The Duke newspaper seems like a fair source for more info:
http://www.chronicle.duke.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/01/28/3d768bb9d1a76?in_archive=1
Going into Sr year of High School Dockery had a 2.3 GPA and a 15 on his ACT. He eventually qualified after summer school.
This is not to say other programs are without controversy. Even the University of Evansville men’s team had 3 players kicked off this year because of a theft on campus. But Duke is not immune from problem players or situations just because they are Duke, and the problems at Duke just seem to disappear without any ramifications. Those UE guys were gone before you could say “what theft?” but Shelden is a poster boy for the Duke program. THAT sucks.
Paladin wrote:
Oh, I actually agree with this. I get tired of all the attention too, especially from Vitale, who drives me up the wall. I understand perfectly well why people call him Dukie V and are annoyed by it. I’m a Duke fan and I’m annoyed by it, so it must be really enraging to fans of other teams. But then my biggest problem with Vitale is that he’s up everyone’s ass. Every coach who ever won a game is a “hall of famer” and every kid who ever made a shot is a “PTPer”. He’s a babbling cheerleader whose schtick got tired 20 years ago and I wish he’d go away forever. And yes, I knew I’d get an impassioned response with this post, but since I’m the only Duke fan surrounded by a bunch of Duke haters, I had to take a stand. Besides, it’s March Madness. And forget gay marriage and constitutional law, this is what’s really important.
dang. I submitted my last post before I saw Ed’s. I hate it when that happens.
Redick- I missed the Redick’s room part, but it was late and I didn’t have my Duke newspapers out. You are the one missing facts now, however, by leaving out a couple details. Let’s go to the Duke paper again. Paraphrasing, after the RA’s phone call, police arrived to a very strong smell of marijuana in the halls, they opened the door to the room where Redick was, and the smell was stronger there. Police lined up the five students (including Redick), who had “red, glossy eyes and a strong smell of marijuana about their person,” but after searching, found no marijuana. police discovered a homemade bong with pieces of green leafs in the water and a strong smell of marijuana emitting from the top. One of the others claimed ownership of the bong. http://www.chronicle.duke.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/03/3e8c2eaa0be1d
That’s a pretty strong case for little JJ hittin the waterpipe, regardless of Duke’s reaction.
Just because you did something doesn’t make it off-limits for criticism.
just because people at other universities do it doesn’t mean when Duke hoops players do it they should get away with it.
Players at other schools get suspended when things like this happens. Players at Duke get dropped charges and non-investigations that Coach K refuses to talk about afterwards. Coincidence? Maybe. but it certainly sucks.
Coach K. has more 30 wins seasons than any other coach–with 5, I believe. Let me drop some names: Tommy Amacker, Mike Brey, Quin Synder, Jeff Capel. These are all former Duke players/assistants who now have coaching jobs of their very own. Not all of these coaches are doing great right now, but they show signs of success. Coach K., like Bobby Knight, builds leaders. How many players in the NBA graduated under Bobby K.? I can think of one exceptional one, Isaiah Thomas. Coach K. and the General take decent players and make great teams. They teach character and integretiy. And they win like mad. Leave Duke alone!
Petronius wrote:
He was suspended from his high school team (not from high school) for having violated the team rules in that incident (it was after curfew and they weren’t supposed to have girls in the rooms, obviously). But that doesn’t mean he assaulted anyone. He was accused of assaulting someone, and she later retracted the accusation and no charges were ever filed. I would argue that given those facts, it is far more reasonable to presume his innocence than to presume his guilt, as you did.
Yes, and? He worked his butt off to qualify academically, and has done well academically at Duke after he got there. If you don’t do well academically at Duke, you get suspended from the team and their standards are higher than the NCAA minimum standards. Andre Sweet was suspended for academic problems a few years ago when the NCAA standards had been met but Duke’s had not; he ended up transferring to another school as a result. Given their graduation rates compared to other schools, one has to consider Duke to be among the very best in this regard, hardly an area where they should be criticized.
It might suck IF Shelden had actually assaulted someone, but the facts in the case don’t support that. You’re comparing a situation where athletes were expelled when they DID commit a crime to an athlete who did not, by all the known facts, commit a crime. That’s hardly reasonable. Shelden has been a model kid at Duke. Were they really suppose to pull his scholarship because of a retracted accusation? If that’s the case, let’s make an accusation against the top recruits from our rival schools every year.
All the known facts? What would you say if Shelden, when asked about the incident, said “We were in our room getting ready to go to bed, and someone came in, and things got out of hand, and then Coach came in and broke it up?” see the earlier cited Duke newspaper article. I understand that a jury could find reasonable doubt all over this case, but luckily the court of public opinion doesn’t have such procedural obstacles.
the same article paraphrases Williams as saying he was kicked out of school.
I don’t want to be seen as saying Duke is evil, just that K has the same low standards, win-at-all-costs type program that many other d-I schools have. The sooner everyone realizes it, the sooner we stop the unwarranted snobbery, which is the root of “Duke Sucks.”
Petronius wrote:
But in this case, there was no jury to find reasonable doubt because no charges were ever filed because the alleged victim retracted the accusation. And on the flimsy grounds of an accusation that was retracted, you declare that he “participated in a sexual assault”? Come on, you have to know that’s an accusation you simply cannot support. Yes, something happened that night, and we can probably make reasonable guesses as to what it was. But the only person who alleged that there was a sexual assault withdrew that accusation during the police investigation. That doesn’t make him a rapist, and it doesn’t provide a reasonable basis on which to declare that he sexually assaulted anyone.
And I’ve never made a claim that Duke was perfect and no one at Duke ever did anything wrong. I made three claims, you can scroll up and check them: A) Duke wins more than any other team in the last 15 years; B) Duke graduates their players at a higher rate than most schools, particularly most really successful schools; and C) Duke has never had a major NCAA violation. All three of those claims were true. In response to that, you’ve got one kid who was accused of assault, then exonerated when the accusation was retracted, and you’ve got a kid who might have – egads! – smoked pot in college. Hell, I gave you a couple more instances of Duke players doing dumb things just like other college kids do, and I could give you several more. Reggie Love got drunk and passed out at a UNC frat party and had pictures taken of him and put up on the internet; Casey Sanders got arrested for trying to choke his girlfriend once. Those things happen at every school. But it has nothing to do with the claims I made, and it doesn’t make your exaggerations any more reasonable.
it has everything to do with your claims. You said: ” And the fact is that the hatred of Duke is motivated solely by jealousy. ”
I pointed out that hatred of Duke is reasonably motivated by 1) Duke being just as flawed as other programs but still being held out as this squeaky clean, choir boy team and 2) the snobbery of Dukies being misguided as a result of the program being like ‘every school.’ JJ’s bongwater, Dockery’s academic struggles and Shelden getting out of hand in high school are right on those points, even if my facts were a little off.
I feel like Dan Rather. Or Michael Moore.
I agree with Mr. Arbiter that Duke haters resent the free pass that the national sports media (especially CBS – one of the reasons I can almost never watch a Duke tournament game) give Duke and Coach K in particular. If you’ve ever been to a Duke game in person, as I have, or ever been to a closed practice, as has a close friend of mine, you know that the Coach K that runs over to congratulate IU after losing in the tournament becomes a fire-breathing, baby-eating megalomaniac once the cameras are off. I bet if you turned into a dog, he wouldn’t even try to help you.
Mr. Brayton, I just cannot agree with your take on “producing good players.” First of all, most of these guys, regardless of who recruited them, were superstars in high school–how else did they get into the college big-time? Basketball recruitment is a brutal weeding process that separates the really good from the exceptionally good. And of the exceptionally, only the top of the cup get anywhere near the Duke-North Carolina level. We’re talking about rare talents here.
But, even assuming Coach K turns “mediocre” players into “great” ones, it still doesn’t explain why so many very high draft picks from Duke have been flops. And, if you like at the younger Duke alums in the NBA–well, Elton Brand is a good player, but he’s been stuck at 20 and 10 his whole career and hasn’t turned the Clippers into a contender. Boozer–sure, he’s making the most of being on a bad Jazz team. Will this guy still be around in five years? Probably not. Deng is having a good, not great, rookie season. And there are plenty of good rookie performers who flame out–in other words, one good season does not a career make.
What Smith teaches his players is that if one is a high draft pick and is being paid a lot of money, one has to produce–period. I simply can’t think off the top of my head of any NC alums who were high draft picks (top five) and flopped. And although there have certainly been busts lower down, there have been just as many solid role-players (Rick Fox, Elden Campbell). On the other hand, Coach K turns out spoiled brats like Christian Laettner who rant and rave about being on a bad team (which is the price one pays for being a high pick) and make no effort to improve himself. (Seriously, Laettner could have been the next Larry Bird if he had applied himself at all. Instead, he faded into the woodwork.) Danny Ferry was drafted by a Clippers team that was terrible but on the verge of turning it around, and he went to Europe for a year. And then, when he returns to the NBA, the guy can’t play! And he cost the Cavaliers a fortune! And, although Grant Hill has been good, he hasn’t lived up to the “next MJ” expectations and become a truly dominant players like Kobe Bryant or Tracy McGrady. And, as for Dunleavy? He’s been in the league 3 years, and he’s basically gone from a 4-2-1 guy to a 12-5-2 guy. He’s just not a good player, especially for one taken third overall. And Williams, although he had a solid rookie year for a point (although nowhere near as good as Kurt Hinrich’s), also had an attitude problem, likely the reason he violated the terms of his contract and road a motorcycle. I wonder if Coach K gave a lecture to his current players on auto safety? Probably not, not even when Bobby Hurley very nearly killed himself but not wearing a seat belt.
The bottom line–Coach K goes through the motions with great players, then lets them loose without teaching them how to be team leaders. On the other hand, Smith held Jordan under 20 for a reason–to teach him to be a team player, first and foremost. And (apologies to Phil Jackson) look at where that got Jordan.
No one wrote:
Oh, I don’t really believe that Coach K turns mediocre players into good players. For the last 10 years in particular, Duke has pretty much gotten its pick of the top high school talent in the nation, and those kids come in tremendously talented. But as my detailed examination above showed, where I went man by man with the players in the NBA from Carolina and Duke, it’s mostly a myth that was based primarily on one group of players from over 20 years ago. There have been some high picks for Duke that have flamed out, but there have been for every school. And right now, only Kentucky has as many productive alumni in the NBA, with Carolina in third place.
By the way, Elden Campbell played at Clemson, not at Carolina. And I fully agree with you that Christian Laettner is a first class jerk who wasted his talent; I just think that’s his fault, not Coach K’s fault. To criticize Grant Hill because he didn’t become the next Michael Jordan is frankly ridiculous. He missed almost 4 entire seasons with an ankle injury, undergoing 5 surgeries, and now that he is back he’s playing at an all star level. In that time he has also represented the league as one of the great gentlemen in the game. But again, I think that’s to his credit, not to Coach K’s credit. Grant Hill is a good man. Had he never met Coach K, he’d still be a good man. By the same token, Christian Laettner would still be a prick even if he’d never met Coach K.
Let me also make clear that I would never try and tear down what Dean Smith achieved at UNC. Dean Smith is a legendary coach for a reason, and by all accounts he is also a fine role model in many other ways. I particularly have great respect for his work to advance civil rights in a place where it could be dangerous to do so when he was a younger man. But Dean Smith had his share of bad apples too. Makhtar Ndiaye is a good example, spitting in an opposing player’s face and then falsely claiming that the player had called him a nigger during the game; a few days later, he admitted that was a lie. Jeff McInnis having an affair with an assistant coach’s wife is another good example. But I maintain that those things are the fault of the individuals, not Dean Smith or anyone else at UNC. I would never dream of holding Dean Smith responsible for Rasheed Wallace’s behavior in the NBA, or for Vince Carter faking injuries in Toronto. Yet any former Duke player does anything wrong, and it’s held up as proof that Coach K is evil. It’s all rather silly, I think.
I pointed out that hatred of Duke is reasonably motivated by 1) Duke being just as flawed as other programs but still being held out as this squeaky clean, choir boy team and 2) the snobbery of Dukies being misguided as a result of the program being like ‘every school.’ JJ’s bongwater, Dockery’s academic struggles and Shelden getting out of hand in high school are right on those points, even if my facts were a little off.
But I never claimed that no one from Duke does anything wrong. I never claimed that Duke doesn’t have behavior problems once in a while, like any other school does. So your animus is really aimed at other hypothetical people who make claims I didn’t make. And in the process, you’ve had to exaggerate and distort examples, including claiming to know that a kid was a rapist on the incredibly flimsy basis of accusations that were retracted by the alleged victim, even to justify that. Not only did I not make the claim that Duke was perfect and they never did anything wrong, I even offered up several other examples of Duke kids getting in trouble, but getting in trouble for doing the same kinds of things college kids do anywhere. Hell, I even said that I have no doubt that the Duke players, like any other major college players, are getting $50 handshakes, free meals and cushy jobs from alumni. So whoever this hypothetical person is who claims that Duke is forever perfect and blameless, it sure ain’t me. The three claims that I made about Duke remain true and unchallenged. Any other claims should be taken up with whoever it is you know who makes those claims.
Vincent wrote:
The CBS games aren’t so bad. Billy Packer certainly can’t be described as a Duke lover. But ESPN games, I fully agree with you. I can’t listen to Dick Vitale. He goes so overboard with his praise of everyone, but especially Duke, that I have to turn the sound down. It just drives me nuts. I totally understand why people would react against that kind of praise. Even as a fan, I do.
“The three claims that I made about Duke remain true and unchallenged.”
As does the claim central to all of my posts – that your fourth claim, that Duke haters “are motivated solely by jealousy” is dead wrong.
I never said that you claimed Duke to be perfect. I have said all along that Duke hatred is motivated by many things other than “jealousy.” My first post, e.g., was about the double standard Duke hoopers are held to – a major source of “Duke sucks” sentiment.
The hatred of Duke is NOT motivated solely by jealousy. It is motivated by CBS, ESPN, Billy Packer, coincidental dropping of investigations when students at other schools are suspended for less, disappointing careers coincidentally attributed to bad luck or laziness, and a foul-mouthed coach who makes Bobby Knight look like the court jester, among other things.
If I must respond to one of your other three points, I’ll give it a shot: your graduation rate assertion is, at best, up for debate. Exhibit A for the prosecution: http://www.bus.ucf.edu/sport/public/downloads/media/ides/Table%20-%20Mens%20Division%20I%20Grad%20Rates%20FINAL.pdf
Duke’s 58 is just above NCState’s and just below UNC’s. 58 isn’t bad, but it’s nothing to get a superiority complex about (which is why Duke really sucks – the superiority complex).