Duke University: Within the past few decades this name has become synonymous with success in college basketball. Coach Mike Krzyzewski has lead year after year of new recruits into the promise land of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament; his 11 Final Four appearances, 8 national title appearances, and 4 NCAA championships standing as a testament to Duke's greatness. Love them or hate them, it is hard to argue that Duke is not a successful basketball program. Let me rephrase that: it is hard to argue that Duke is not a successful basketball program except when it comes to producing NBA players. Yes, I realize that Duke and Coach Krzyzewski are excellent at producing successful people, I will not question that; however, Coach K and Duke have a rather poor record at producing basketball players that prove successful at the NBA level.
I know, I know, what about Grant Hill? He is an amazing NBA talent who is a potential future Hall-Of-Famer (a general subject to be detailed in a future post, I promise) and he went to Duke! Yes, at 17.6 PPG averaged for his career and over 16000 points for his career (16178 at time of this post) he has more than proven himself as a NBA player. And yes, there is the curious case of Loul Deng, SF for the Chicago Bulls with 16.0 PPG over his career (and from the looks of it this might increase over the next few years). These two examples are what we call statistical outliers in empirical analysis, in other words these are anomalies. Remember Christian Laettner? Star Duke forward, who was a cannot miss NCAA prospect? While 12.8 PPG is roughly 12.8 PPG more than what I could pull in the NBA, considering how highly touted he was coming out of Duke, his careet average of 12.8 PPG is rather underwhelming. How about J.J. Redick, a sure-shot guarantee SG from Duke? 7.6 PPG for his career so far (in the middle of his fifth year) does not speak so well for how well he performed in NCAA play. How about prospect Danny Ferry who had a career 7.0 PPG or Bobby Hurley with 3.8 PPG for his career or Daniel Ewing with 3.4 PPG?
I could continue to list various Duke prospects that failed in the NBA, however, this will be a mere exercise in my ability to dig up data. I hope the point is clear, players who were successful at Duke do not translate their talent that well to the NBA. So what accounts for this disconnect? I theorize that it is the recruiting talent of Coach K. One of the key ways in which Duke has been able to maintain its success is in the ability of Krzyzewski to recruit the best sort of player for his basketball system. At Duke Coach K has a particular philosophy and he recruits to fit his way of playing basketball. Furthermore, looking at his success as coach of Team USA in recent years nullifies the possibility that he cannot coach NBA talent. Coach K knows how to run a basketball program whether it is college kids or elite NBA talent; the problem here is that when he is dealing with Duke he does not run a NBA style program hence he does not recruit as such. The reason for this goes back to his philosophy: team basketball. While any successful program at the NCAA, Olympic, or NBA level has to run a team based defense, Coach K has emphasized a team oriented offense as well. That has been what makes Duke so lethal under Krzyzewski; you can take out his number one scorer but that will minimally hurt his team since they operate on using all five guys on the floor to run the offense. This sort of philosophy does not translate well into the NBA, however, where most teams base there offense around two or three guys on the floor. You were guaranteed your touches and scoring opportunities if you were a starter for Duke, in the NBA this is not the case.
This is not a knock on Krzyzewski but instead is a warning to NBA scouts who are looking at the college ranks. Do not fall in love with the banners and stats that Duke players put up, please pay attention at the player's particular skill set. Remember, these players have found success in a peculiar system, make sure that the skills needed in this system match your team's system before you waste a draft pick. Furthermore, this might be a signal to the NBA that there might be something to the team based offense. Look at home many championships Lebron James, the best talent in the NBA, had when he was the offense in Cleveland: 0. Take a look at how many banners the Detroit Piston and San Antonio Spurs (both epitomes of the team concept) have won in the past 8 seasons: 4. There might be something to the team oriented offense, however, this is more the exception as opposed to the norm in the NBA. Maybe at that point Duke players will have consistent success in the NBA, until then just hope your favorite NBA team's GM does not use a first-round draft pick on another hot Duke prospect.
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