Is Coach Krzyzewski going to the Lakers to be the best paid head coach ever?
I say he should go for it. What else can he do at Duke?
Being an inveterate Duke-hater, I really hope he takes the Laker job. The Blue Devils will be weaker no matter who they bring in to replace him. That isn’t to say that they’ll automatically turn to mush, but they won’t be quite so automatic when it comes to landing top recruits.
I think highly of Coach K, but I wonder how easy it will be for a lifelong college coach, a guy who’s always had absolute control over his players, to command respect in the NBA. It’s pretty obvious right now that Kobe Bryant OWNS the team, and that Kobe’s word is law. Phil Jackson was fired because Kobe didn’t like him.
How will Coach K (or ANYBODY hired to replace Jackson) command respect from Kobe without becoming a patsy?
If Coach K wants to test himself in the pros, I understand and wish him luck. But the Lakers job looks like a no-win situation, from here. Hubie Brown proved this past season that an old-school disciplinarian CAN relate to younger players and earn their respect. There are teams that could give Coach K a similar opportunity. But I think he’d be ill-advised to go to L.A.
As a life-long Marylander, and a Univ. of Maryland- College Park grad, I sure as hell hope so!
I’m a big Laker fan and I think it’s a bad idea. It’ll be another Pitino.
Haj
I hope he goes for it.
With any luck, he’ll wreck Duke AND the Lakers in one fell swoop, which would make me very, very happy.
Go, Coack K, with Godspeed and my blessings. Maybe then the other college teams, including the UK Wildcats and Coach Tubby can land the recruits they richly deserve but who are dazzled by the Coack K aura of invincibility.
Well, actually, Duke DOESN’T have an aura of invincibility, and hasn’t for some time. Coach K has learned the hard way that Duke is no more immune to the changes that have hit college basketball than any other school is. He’s watched numerous high schoolers that he hoped to recruit spurn college ball to go pro, and he’s had numerous players drop out of school early. In fact, these developments are probably a big part of why he’s thinking about leaving college basketball.
College baseball went through a similar shakeup (although it didn’t attract as much notice, since so few people follow college baseball) in the 1980’s. A lot of perennial college baseball powerhouses (like Texas) went into major slumps precisely because the kind of top-notch prospects they used to attract were now getting offered so much money in signing bonuses, it just didn’t pay to play college ball! Texas and similar schools were recruiting high school stars who would invariably sign pro contracts at the last minute, and leave the colleges scrambling to replace them. Meanwhile, formerly mediocre college teams saw their fortunes rise, since they were never going after the elite high schoolers to begin with- they’d been recruiting the second-tier players. And as it turned out, for quite a while, the teams that attracted the second-tier talent were the ones succeeding!
A similar process may be happening now. The real elite high school basketball players will be skipping college, increasingly, and colleges that used to rely on such players will nosedive. The college teams that thrive will be the ones that can attract the good-but-not-great players, and that have coaches smart enough to make those players perform to the best of their abilities.
And, I hate to break it to Duke haters, but Kentucky and Maryland may not be the schools best able to take advantage of the new realities!
I accept that a new reality exists in college basketball. Also accepted is the notion that second-tier talent will be scrambled for in the recruiting chase. I don’t accept that Tubby Smith can’t recognise this and take best advantage of it. Look at his recruiting class for 2005.
astorian, which colleges do you see best marketing themselves to potential recruits of the second-tier calibre?