Forbes article
“Duke could win the national championship this season in college basketball. Duke could go undefeated. While doing all of that, Duke could set the NCAA record for most double-digit blowouts, you know, by Christmas Eve.”
“If all of that happens (and it could with potentially the most prolific trio of freshmen ever), Mike Krzyzewski would move closer to the title of Greatest Hypocrite In Sports History.”
“Duke could win the national championship this season in college basketball. Duke could go undefeated. While doing all of that, Duke could set the NCAA record for most double-digit blowouts, you know, by Christmas Eve.”
“If all of that happens (and it could with potentially the most prolific trio of freshmen ever), Mike Krzyzewski would move closer to the title of Greatest Hypocrite In Sports History.”
If all of that happens (and it could with potentially the most prolific trio of freshmen ever), Mike Krzyzewski would move closer to the title of Greatest Hypocrite In Sports History.
Isn’t this the same guy who gives you the impression during press conferences that if he weren’t coaching, he would operate at the highest levels of the Vatican or something? Yep, but as somebody who has sat behind the Duke bench on more than a few occasions during his nearly four decades with the Blue Devils, I can tell you that, in another life, Coach K would have owned the biggest potty mouth among all of the Popes.
Isn’t this the same guy who likes to talk about mom, apple pie and the Duke Way, while suggesting he couldn’t imagine berating an opposing player and then lying about it? Yep, but Krzyzewski did both of those things. Near the end of Oregon’s Dillon Brooks helping his team upset Duke during the 2016 NCAA Tournament, the player flung a half-court shot toward the basket. Brooks said Krzyzewski scolded him in the aftermath, but Coach K said it never happened. Well, until audio surfaced the next day to prove otherwise. Krzyzewski sort of apologized to Brooks before he pivoted in a hurry to sound as if he was paraphrasing that old Groucho Marx line: “Are you going to believe me, or your lying ears?’”
Anyway, here’s the Coach K contradiction that applies to what happened Tuesday night during the Champions Classic in Indianapolis, where his No. 4 team of three NBA lottery picks by the end of next June clobbered No. 2 Kentucky with its latest group of one-and-done sensations. The final score was 118-84, and in case you missed it, not only is Kentucky into one-and-done players these days, but so is Pope, I mean, Coach K.
Isn’t this the same guy who had a hissy fit in 1999 when sophomore William Avery and freshman Corey Maggette bolted Duke for the pros? Yep. Krzyzewski supported sophomore Elton Brand leaving that bunch as the future No. 1 pick in the NBA draft for the Chicago Bulls, but when it came to the others, Coach K went into his unofficial papal routine to proclaim the virtues of his kids getting the full benefit of Duke education.
That was so Johnny Dawkins, Danny Ferry, Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, Shane Battier and J.J. Redick.
Now Coach K is Kentucky coach John Calipari 2.0.
It happened quickly. Three years after the NBA added its age limit in 2006 on players entering its league to create this one-and-done mess, Kentucky hired Calipari, and he embraced it, and then he flaunted it. Elsewhere, Krzyzewski won the fourth of his five national championships in 2010 with his traditional collection of juniors and seniors. Then he got amnesia about how he once ripped one-and-done players, because he recruited a slew of them after Kyrie Irving came and went from Duke in 2011.
Austin Rivers did the same in 2012, and Jabari Parker followed the pattern a couple of years later. Then in 2015, Duke grabbed its last national championship in Indianapolis with Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones, all one-and done guys.
What’s up with this?
“When we recruit a kid, we don’t say, ‘You’re a one-and-done,’ but we recognize he could be,” Krzyzewski told those of us back then during a press conference before the start of that Final Four. He recalled his philosophy before the NBA’s one-and-done rule, and he said, “There were maybe eight-to-12 kids that we didn’t recruit each year because we felt they would go right to the NBA . . . Then when one-and-done became in effect, we still didn’t recruit those kids, and then we started to recruit (them) because we said, ‘Maybe some of them or one of them could fit the profile for Duke.’ . . . There’s a certain profile we look for, for whether he’s one-and-done or four years or whatever.
“So if we can find kids that fit our profile, we’ll deal with the consequences of whether they’re there for one, two, three or four years. I think to get the right kid is the most important (thing). We need to respond accordingly if we lose them earlier.”
Uh-huh.
Isn’t this the same guy who gives you the impression during press conferences that if he weren’t coaching, he would operate at the highest levels of the Vatican or something? Yep, but as somebody who has sat behind the Duke bench on more than a few occasions during his nearly four decades with the Blue Devils, I can tell you that, in another life, Coach K would have owned the biggest potty mouth among all of the Popes.
Isn’t this the same guy who likes to talk about mom, apple pie and the Duke Way, while suggesting he couldn’t imagine berating an opposing player and then lying about it? Yep, but Krzyzewski did both of those things. Near the end of Oregon’s Dillon Brooks helping his team upset Duke during the 2016 NCAA Tournament, the player flung a half-court shot toward the basket. Brooks said Krzyzewski scolded him in the aftermath, but Coach K said it never happened. Well, until audio surfaced the next day to prove otherwise. Krzyzewski sort of apologized to Brooks before he pivoted in a hurry to sound as if he was paraphrasing that old Groucho Marx line: “Are you going to believe me, or your lying ears?’”
Anyway, here’s the Coach K contradiction that applies to what happened Tuesday night during the Champions Classic in Indianapolis, where his No. 4 team of three NBA lottery picks by the end of next June clobbered No. 2 Kentucky with its latest group of one-and-done sensations. The final score was 118-84, and in case you missed it, not only is Kentucky into one-and-done players these days, but so is Pope, I mean, Coach K.
Isn’t this the same guy who had a hissy fit in 1999 when sophomore William Avery and freshman Corey Maggette bolted Duke for the pros? Yep. Krzyzewski supported sophomore Elton Brand leaving that bunch as the future No. 1 pick in the NBA draft for the Chicago Bulls, but when it came to the others, Coach K went into his unofficial papal routine to proclaim the virtues of his kids getting the full benefit of Duke education.
That was so Johnny Dawkins, Danny Ferry, Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, Shane Battier and J.J. Redick.
Now Coach K is Kentucky coach John Calipari 2.0.
It happened quickly. Three years after the NBA added its age limit in 2006 on players entering its league to create this one-and-done mess, Kentucky hired Calipari, and he embraced it, and then he flaunted it. Elsewhere, Krzyzewski won the fourth of his five national championships in 2010 with his traditional collection of juniors and seniors. Then he got amnesia about how he once ripped one-and-done players, because he recruited a slew of them after Kyrie Irving came and went from Duke in 2011.
Austin Rivers did the same in 2012, and Jabari Parker followed the pattern a couple of years later. Then in 2015, Duke grabbed its last national championship in Indianapolis with Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones, all one-and done guys.
What’s up with this?
“When we recruit a kid, we don’t say, ‘You’re a one-and-done,’ but we recognize he could be,” Krzyzewski told those of us back then during a press conference before the start of that Final Four. He recalled his philosophy before the NBA’s one-and-done rule, and he said, “There were maybe eight-to-12 kids that we didn’t recruit each year because we felt they would go right to the NBA . . . Then when one-and-done became in effect, we still didn’t recruit those kids, and then we started to recruit (them) because we said, ‘Maybe some of them or one of them could fit the profile for Duke.’ . . . There’s a certain profile we look for, for whether he’s one-and-done or four years or whatever.
“So if we can find kids that fit our profile, we’ll deal with the consequences of whether they’re there for one, two, three or four years. I think to get the right kid is the most important (thing). We need to respond accordingly if we lose them earlier.”
Uh-huh.