Doomed Dukies
Redick will be latest Blue Devil to flop in NBA
I occasionally think that I would make a good NBA GM before quickly disqualifying myself on the grounds that I would never, under any circumstances, draft or sign a Duke alum. As a Wake Forest alum and a lifelong University of Kentucky fan, my hatred of all things Blue Devils is just too passionate; I'm fairly certain that my drafting a Duke player would make my dad cry. For instance, no matter how impressive J.J. Redick has been this season, I wouldn't draft him, not even if I were just playing "Danny Ainge for a Day."
However, after giving this one some more thought, I realized that this philosophy makes me supremely qualified to be a GM. Duke players in the NBA should be avoided like a girlfriend with anger issues, no matter how good they looked in college. If you don't believe me, just ask Cleveland GM Danny Ferry how well the NBA careers of former Duke stars have gone.
So congratulations, J.J., you'll win the Wooden Award, and then you'll wash out of the NBA after your rookie contract. William Avery wanted to call to give you the bad news, but he's busy playing in a former Soviet republic where telephones are still a rumor.
Yes, Redick's a great offensive talent, and for all the vilification he gets, he seems like a fairly gracious, hardworking guy. I'm still not buying the argument that Redick will make it in the league because teams always need pure shooters. Have you forgotten Trajan Langdon? I hope the "Alaskan Assassin" thing wasn't just a nickname, because there's more money for him in the murder-for-hire business than in basketball right now.
Admittedly, some Duke players have found a bit of success in the NBA. In his career, Elton Brand has almost 10,000 points scored, 5,000 rebounds grabbed, and 4,000 cheeseburgers eaten. Shane Battier has made a career out of flopping to get charges called. Luol Deng could be even better when he realizes he can do toe-touches without bending over, saving valuable energy in pre-game stretching. Corey Maggette could win the coveted title of "The Cedric Ceballos of his Generation," which is kind of like being a CBA All-Star, but with less glory. Any time you make an alphabetical list of Egyptian-born NBA players, Alaa Abdelnaby still comes first, and that's got to count for something.
For every one of these success stories, there are two counterexamples, though. Turn on any Sixers game, and you can see Shavlik Randolph looking like a lost kid who still needs his mom to drive him to practice and cut his steak for him. When David Stern's marketing machine makes its own dairy brand targeted at teens, former ACC Player of the Year Chris Carrawell's career will be listed as "Missing" on the milk cartons.
How do players who show so much promise in college fail at such a high rate in the NBA? I don't want to use the word "curse," but only supernatural forces can explain the horror show of Grant Hill's ankles.
A better solution is to blame Coach K's system for making above-average players look fantastic, which is better than his protégé Quin Snyder's system of making fantastic players look below-average. (Don't worry, Quin; you've got the best hair in the whole damn unemployment line.) In this vein, Redick might just be better off bagging the NBA and joining Coach K's bench a la Steve Wojciehowski, although he'll have to slap the court an awful lot in his last dozen games to be as annoying as Wojo was in his playing days.
As a friend recently pointed out to me, this is the same system that made Christian Laettner the all-time least-deserving player to own an Olympic gold medal. (Vin Baker would have won this award, but he traded his medal for a plate of Buffalo wings with extra bleu cheese.) Duke basketball relies on a killer team concept, with enough McDonald's All-American talent and ball movement to get the great shooters open, and it's especially deadly when there's a good big man to keep defenses honest. In the NBA, however, Redick will miss having a dominant post presence like Shelden Williams to take the pressure off of him in the defense and thin-mustache-growing departments.
Still not convinced? Mike Dunleavy got a huge, cap-killing contract extension even though his only discernible talent is looking like the elf from the Claymation Rudolph movie. When the NBA adds naked free-throw shooting to the All-Star Skills Competition, Dahntay Jones will be a mortal lock to win. Until then, he's relegated to playing 12 minutes a night for the Grizzlies. Carlos Boozer looks like he may be on the Grant Hill Perpetually-Injured Career Arc, but at least he can still be remembered as the only NBA player whose chest hair showed even when he wore a turtleneck. They're all hilariously disappointing when they take it to the next level.
In the American Express commercial that just won't die, Coach K says he wants to send his players out into the world armed with more than just a jumpshot, but Redick will go into the pros armed with only a jumpshot and a sneer. Like a lot of former Blue Devils, he'll probably be a lottery pick, and he may even stick around for five or six years as a situational shooter on someone's bench. More likely, he'll probably be the reincarnation of Danny Ferry, and I don't mean that he'll refuse to play for the Clippers and then fail to re-sign LeBron James 20 years later.
I'd go on, but I've got to wrap things up. Cherokee Parks just showed up to deliver my pizza. Can I give him his own rookie card as a tip, or is that considered cheap?
When you read things on the Internet, do they make you so mad you have to send hatemail from your "@duke.edu" address? Ethan can be reached at [email protected].
