Thorpe on Dukies in the NBA

[Billy Dat]

(Mods - I looked for an older thread to post this in, assuming there was a Duke players in the NBA thread, but I couldn't find one and gave up.)

I just saw the following in David Thorpe's ESPN chat yesterday and thought it was an interesting take on Duke players success in the NBA, one that I hadn't heard before:

Bill (Jacksonville): How will Gerald Henderson be in the NBA?

David Thorpe: Very talented. I only question his motor, Coach K gets everyone to play so hard but few NBA coaches do that.

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I've always felt that one of K getting his teams to play harder was an explanation for a lot of Duke phenomena (e.g. our gaudy records in the first 1/2 of the season), but never thought that it might part of the a reason why a guy was more successful at Duke than in the pros.

[RoyalBlue08]

I don't think I buy this theory. I do think Coach K gets his guys to play harder than just about anyone else in college, but I have always thought that the guys that go pro continue to play that way. Duhon and Battier immediately come to mind as "effort" guys. And watching JJ run around after Ray Allen was tiring me out on the couch.

I think the "lack of success" if there has been one (I still think we have more guys in the NBA than any other school...but maybe I'm wrong), has just been a bit a bad luck. Injuries to JWill and Grant Hill prevented them from reaching their potential, but guys like Brand and Booser became stars and there is the long list of other solid NBA players.

I bet if you compared it to UNC or UCLA or any other traditional power, you would see a similar sort of success rate in their college stars becoming good NBA players.

[mo.st.dukie]

I bet if you compared it to UNC or UCLA or any other traditional power, you would see a similar sort of success rate in their college stars becoming good NBA players.

Yeah, most of the superstars in todays NBA either came straight out of high school, from overseas, or from a college program that was not a traditional powerhouse (Wade-Marquette, Duncan-Wake,etc.). The reason for this is probably because the traditional powerhouses in college basketball usually rely on a collection of great talent rather than one or two stars (see UNC this year where only one player is projected to be a good NBA player). The injury to JWill really hurts IMO because I think if he were still playing he would be considered one of the top PG's in the league and that would help when recruiting top notch PG's.