Duke – Where big men go to die
We’re throwing some random stuff out today to keep your brains active. We praised DBR in this entry, so I guess it put Duke on our mind.
With that said, we thought that you would enjoy the following comments written about the worst early-entries into the NBA draft. (Warning: the link takes you to a Gregg Doyel article. To be fair, Doyel has proven a penchant to criticize Duke as much or more, than most of his targets. This link will take you to a related entry that you will enjoy today).
2. Josh McRoberts, Duke
Before McRoberts it was Shavlik Randolph. Before Randolph it was Chris Burgess. Before Burgess it was Taymon Domzalski. Big men go to Duke with big names, and with some exceptions — but not you, Casey Sanders or Eric Boateng or Michael Thompson — they leave with diminished reputations. Such is the case with McRoberts, who was a definite lottery pick after high school and a possible lottery pick after last season but now is projected to go later in the first round. So why come out now, after his sophomore season? Because with another year at Duke, McRoberts would be a second-rounder. Imagine if he stayed through his senior year. He’d go undrafted, then get cut by some team in Korea.
^This laundry list of under-achieving big men is pretty impressive/damaging.
Sometimes I wonder if the success that Coach K had with certain types of players in the past serves to negatively impact his vision on some of his assessments in modern day recruiting. For example, guys like Wojo and Greg Paulus simply are NOT future Bobby Hurleys; Chris Burgess, Shavlick Randolph and some of these other big men that have come through are not the next Danny Ferry and/or Christian Laettner.
Of course, Elton Brand, Carlos Boozer and Sheldon Williams also came along in the middle of these names. But, didn’t these guys have ample talent BEFORE coming to Duke? Seriously…Brand lasted one? two? years in college and moved on to become an immediate home run in the NBA. Not a lot of ‘developing’ that needed to be done there. The success of a few uber-talented recruits hardly makes up for the disappointing development of so many McDonald’s All-Americans.
Coach K recruits a lot of 6’7″ to 6’11″ white guys. Tayman Domzalski(sp) wasn’t even that big of a recruit. I forget the exact percentage made up by caucasians in the NBA, but it isn’t a whole lot. Lack of athleticism kills many NBA careers and keeps many great college players from having all-star type of careers.
Elton Brand, Carlos Boozer and Sheldon Williams are similar in size, but have better athleticism. Brand is an all-star (20 pts, 9 rebs per game), Boozer is going to be a perennial all-star (20.9 pts, 11.4 rebs per game), and IMO Shewill be a double digit scorer and double digit rebounder for years to come(5.4 pts, 5.4 rebs).
Where is K’s credit for these guys?
Throw in Alaa Abdelnaby, Christian Laettner and Danny Ferry and Coach K’s record with big men is pretty damn solid.
And I hate Coach K as much as anyone. In this case, Doyel sounds like the typical Carolina fan who brings up this topic without pointing out all the 6’7″ to 6’11″ white guys that have had great NBA careers after going to UNC.
Don’t get his point on McBob at all. Since this is Doyel, guess that’s not surprising. But by his own argument, another year would be unlikely to improve McBob’s status. So why is he a knucklehead for going now, if he’d be even more of a knucklehead for staying?
Deng is turning out to be a great NBA’er too.
I totally agree with O. But also, Coach K’s focus is where it is SUPPOSED to be. The man recruits basketball players to play COLLEGE basketball and he recruits players that he needs in order to win basketball games on the collegiate level, and while they’re attending Duke University. If I’m not mistaken, no one pays Coach K to recruit HS basketball players in order for them to increase overall talent of the NBA. I’d even go out a limb to say that Coach K has earned his money and done pretty well at Duke, and that the folks there are pretty happy with his job performance thus far, no matter what Greg Doyle’s latest spew is about.
I just can’t look at anything Doyle writes. It’s difficult for me to believe that you guys will continue put links to anything of his on your site regardless of who he is criticizing. After some of the things I’ve seen of his in the last couple of years there is nothing he can write that is worth my time. He has no credibility!
I agree, Doyel has zero credibility. I would not be surprised if his contract with CBS specifically states that he is to write very controversial articles to stir up resentment. He simply wants to cast every subject he writes about in a bad light. Sports commentary which is constantly negatively slanted is not fun or accurate.
My god, that man is a dumb@$$. “ready for the NBA?” What does “ready for the NBA” have to do with ANYTHING?
Gerald Wallace was the sixth man at Alabama and was only scoring about seven points a game. Was he “ready for the NBA?”
“ready for the nba???”
Mr. O, you had me at “D—– sounds like the typical Carolina fan.” I’d edit that slightly to read, “D—– sounds like the typical Carolina Internet poster.” With this column he’s just demonstrated the same clichéd parroting that caused him to conclude that NC State basketball shouldn’t expect it could do better than a modest winning season and a first-week trip to the NCAAs and that Jim Valvano’s Mafia buddies had John Simonds offed since he, G.D., couldn’t find him using the Yahoo! search engine.
I have bcome puzzled by K’s recruiting lately. He seems to be trying to get great 4 year players or something. He seems to be going afer fewer athletes and more basketball players. As HWSNBN can attest that is a sure way to mediocracy.
not to jack the thread but, i can only hope we dont start scheduling teams like UVA is doing. i mean why play USC when you can travel to greenville to play the pirates???? o wait, we already do that.
http://www.theacc.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/050207aae.html
not to jack the thread, but is everyone aware of the meet the coaches thing going on tonite at 6:00?? OB and C-lowe are supposed to speak. there of course is nothing on the go pack website about it. This is the same thing as last year where avent and the softball coach spoke for 10 minutes and chuck rambelled on for freakin hour and a half. just wanted to make sure yall knew about it.
“He seems to be going afer fewer athletes and more basketball players. As HWSNBN can attest that is a sure way to mediocracy.”
necessary?
^It’s a valid debate. I’m not sure if I agree with him. Although I think Roy Williams is attempting exactly the opposite, and I don’t expect it work out great. It seems to me in today’s game you need the talent of 1-and-doners mixed in with some leadership from some 4-year role players.
Pre-season ACC Football rankings. NC State predicted for last place in Atlantic Division. UNC predicted last in Coastal.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2862583
“Valid arguments could be made that nine of the conference’s 12 members have a legitimate shot at playing for the league title in Jacksonville on Dec. 1. Only Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State are out of that mix”
Rick, Rick, Ricky, Rick
Don’t you know you can’t say stuff like that on here? The Avenger is always lurking close by.
IM JUST GLAD WE HAVE A HOME ANd home with friggin East Carolina and Not a team like Southern Cal. i mean who wants to play them. i would much rather take my chances getting the CLAP in g-vegas then get some national TV exposure playing USC> Fowler worked hard to get us that home and home with ECU. cant you guys see leadership when its right in front of you.
hey lush, THELMA C RALEY HALL represent!!! holla
I dont know if I should be upset that ESPN has so little faith in our team to place us last, or happy that they have so little faith in Carolina’s that they have DUKE ahead of them!!!!!
So the football fortunes are not too highly regarded in the triangle right now? I’m thinking one of those three cellar dwellers will step up and surprise some people, and I don’t hardly think it’s going to be Duke/Roof.
a suprise for Duke would be 2 wins. I think they might actually pull off at least one this year. Carolina I see hitting the cellar. I guess we get to be the big suprise!!! …or at least I am hoping for it.
Read the comments from that espn link and there is a post from a heels fan, claiming that butch will bring unc back to a top 5 program. when the hell were they a top 5 program to begin with. must have been before my time. also stated that butch’s good recruiting class this year means competing for an acc championship next year. wow, does that freshman class include lawrence taylor, julius peppers, willie parker (oh, nevermind).
Last year, my neighbor, who played FB for Mac Brown when he was coaching UNX was swearing that UNX was going to compete for the ACC title last year.
I laughed and told him they would be lucky to win 4 games. It’s just the eternal optimism of spotless minds.
Put me in the: “why does anyone, *especially here*, continue to discuss or care what G.D. writes?” camp.
I’m not going to increase his hit counter no matter what the article or circumstances and moreover, I refuse to even visit sportsline.com while he’s even employed there.
“He seems to be going afer fewer athletes and more basketball players. As HWSNBN can attest that is a sure way to mediocracy.”
necessary?
Cedar,
You do not decide what is necessary and what is not. If you do not like what people post then leave.
“He seems to be going afer fewer athletes and more basketball players. As HWSNBN can attest that is a sure way to mediocracy”
Ced, Grant, Fells, Cam, Powell, Brackman, etc… are athletes.