Tony Parker to UCLA

[Edouble]

Its Georgia

So... um, what was this all about anyway?

[dukeballboy88]

Does anyone ever draw it out and pick Duke? Count me in with the group that is happy he didnt come to Duke.

[lotusland]

UCLA.

It's going to take Tony awhile to make it out to the west coast.

[dukebballcamper90-91]

UCLA is going to be scary, one good thing may happen, Larry Drew may get a ring and marshall will not

[cbnaylor]

Did Tony fail to tell his parents because they look pissed.

[Zeb]

What a start to his college career. He's already beaten HB at something. #notsosourgrapes

[sbroc012]

Wow, kind of glad he didn't choose Duke after all that, however at first he was kind of looking hard at that Duke hat, makes you wonder how certain he was about his choice, my guess is he wasn't. O well, time to get Amile and/or go after our 2013 guys.

[Wander]

Does anyone ever draw it out and pick Duke? Count me in with the group that is happy he didnt come to Duke.

Lance

[CUNKNNK]

This boils down to the fact that UCLA did everything right to get him. They signed his AAU coach to make him (and his parents) feel comfortable with him there. They sold him on the fact they are the school with the most championships all-time (ancient history I know, but still history). They had Shabazz and Kyle in his ear constantly selling him on Westwood.

They also convinced him very early that Duke does not/would not be able to develop him as a big man. I don't think anything Coach K and the staff did got that out of his head.

Congrats to UCLA.

They overcame the "too far from home". They convinced him it was the best fit right away, even though they have talent returning at his position and he will likely come off the bench. They convinced him they will win right away with the talent coming in, even though 'Bazz may end up being ineligible and probably will be in the NBA before TP gets much PT. They convinced him they are "all about winning" even though they have been the worst team of all his final schools for the last several years. Good sell.

Congrats to Tony Parker and good luck to him. I really hope he made the right decision, and I am confident in Duke's future without him anyway.

[OldPhiKap]

Congrats to Tony Parker and good luck to him. I really hope he made the right decision, and I am confident in Duke's future without him anyway.

This. Good luck to him, next play for us. We've got a lot of talent and should be in the hunt next year.

[jennja01]

cant help but have a sour taste in my mouth after this one. I know a lot of people didnt like the way parker handled his recruitment, but I still wanted him to play basketball @ Duke. Our staff and especially coach K worked on him for so long only to see him go elsewhere... im sure we'll see our fair share of "coack K cant recruit anymore" vs. "our recruiting is fine we just won a NC 2 yrs ago" on this board over the next several months. I think coach k, his recruiting, and our program are fine, but this one is just a little frustrating seeing as we were on him for so long. In addition we seemed to somewhat seperate ourselves from ellis/poythress and also missed on mcgary/muhammed and were involved with at least 5 other guys in this class at some point or another but ended up with only 1 with a shot at 1 more. and i know people are gonna say "well we had a 5 man class the year before" but really that 5 man class consists of QC, MP, and AM, or just QC if you want to throw MP and AM in with RS for this years class... anyway, as i said earlier i think we're fine and i think Coach K is great etc. its just a little disappointing that we decided to "cast a wide net" for this class and ended up with 1 player, maybe 2.

[miramar]

As it turns out, the high school now has the presser on demand!

Considering that this was even more boring than the Kardashians, I don't think they will have many takers.

http://www.ghsa.tv/millergrove/events/33656

[SupaDave]

cant help but have a sour taste in my mouth after this one. I know a lot of people didnt like the way parker handled his recruitment, but I still wanted him to play basketball @ Duke. Our staff and especially coach K worked on him for so long only to see him go elsewhere... im sure we'll see our fair share of "coack K cant recruit anymore" vs. "our recruiting is fine we just won a NC 2 yrs ago" on this board over the next several months. I think coach k, his recruiting, and our program are fine, but this one is just a little frustrating seeing as we were on him for so long. In addition we seemed to somewhat seperate ourselves from ellis/poythress and also missed on mcgary/muhammed and were involved with at least 5 other guys in this class at some point or another but ended up with only 1 with a shot at 1 more. and i know people are gonna say "well we had a 5 man class the year before" but really that 5 man class consists of QC, MP, and AM, or just QC if you want to throw MP and AM in with RS for this years class... anyway, as i said earlier i think we're fine and i think Coach K is great etc. its just a little disappointing that we decided to "cast a wide net" for this class and ended up with 1 player, maybe 2.

Feel better knowing that Duke already knew it's name wouldn't be called...

[proelitedota]

I can breathe a sigh of relief.
I am glad that he didn't pick us. Everything leading up to his announcement has cemented in my mind the opinion that he isn't the type of kid that I would want on my team.

I think we dodged a bullet.

I think it won't be long before we all share this sentiment next year.

[Class of '94]

This boils down to the fact that UCLA did everything right to get him. They signed his AAU coach to make him (and his parents) feel comfortable with him there. They sold him on the fact they are the school with the most championships all-time (ancient history I know, but still history). They had Shabazz and Kyle in his ear constantly selling him on Westwood.

They also convinced him very early that Duke does not/would not be able to develop him as a big man. I don't think anything Coach K and the staff did got that out of his head.

Congrats to UCLA.

They overcame the "too far from home". They convinced him it was the best fit right away, even though they have talent returning at his position and he will likely come off the bench. They convinced him they will win right away with the talent coming in, even though 'Bazz may end up being ineligible and probably will be in the NBA before TP gets much PT. They convinced him they are "all about winning" even though they have been the worst team of all his final schools for the last several years. Good sell.

Congrats to Tony Parker and good luck to him. I really hope he made the right decision, and I am confident in Duke's future without him anyway.

Not to derail this thread any further; but I would hope out of respect for K and the time Coach invested in him that Bazz would not stoop to neagatively recruiting against Duke for Parker. That said, good luck to TP at UCLA. I think it's important to have guys that want to come to Duke; and after I never got a strong sense that he really wanted to come to Duke. Based on his comments about UCLA, it seemed that UCLA was the schol he liked the most all along; but the distance factor was the major stumbling factor. And for all the talk about him wanting to go to a place where he could major minutes, imo he chose UCLA for the non-basketball intangibles (i.e., beautiful campus, location, etc) and that PT wasn't the main factor. That said, I think Parker is really going to have to increase his work ethic and adjust his attitude towards playing hard all the time if he's ever going to reach his potential and dream of the NBA; and I, personally, am happier to have MP2 over Parker at Duke next season if I had to pick between the two.

[_Gary]

I can breathe a sigh of relief.
I am glad that he didn't pick us. Everything leading up to his announcement has cemented in my mind the opinion that he isn't the type of kid that I would want on my team.


I think we dodged a bullet.

I agree, and this isn't sour grapes from me. The fact is he went, literally, on the record saying that he was concerned because Duke can't/doesn't develop big men very well. That set up a situation that was a no-win for the good guys. If he came here and failed, it would have been the Duke staff's fault. Had he come here and succeeded, it would have been all him and done nothing at all to dispel the myth. So I'm more than happy he went somewhere else. I really, really am. And because he was so exceedling vocal (on a national level) with his dissing Duke's big man coaching, I can't say I really wish him well. Nuff said.

Go Duke!

[slower]

I can breathe a sigh of relief.
I am glad that he didn't pick us. Everything leading up to his announcement has cemented in my mind the opinion that he isn't the type of kid that I would want on my team.

I think we dodged a bullet.

I think it won't be long before we all share this sentiment next year.

This. Never felt right with this kid, and I always sensed an undercurrent of disrespect. Good riddance. We shouldn't have to beg for anybody.

[SoCalDukeFan]

should finally get to play or be on the bench in the NCAA Tournament.

NIT with UNC-CH
NIT as transfers with UCLA
Nada with UCLA

SoCal

[Edouble]

If you feel like you didn't get your money's worth in the first hour, the stream continues. You can watch the custodian up on a ladder taking down the jerseys and balloons. Seriously.

I will watch Mr. Parker's career with some interest. I am especially curious to see how ready he is to dominate on the inside, with a strong, yet youthful supporting cast against fairly weak competition.

[Class of '94]

cant help but have a sour taste in my mouth after this one. I know a lot of people didnt like the way parker handled his recruitment, but I still wanted him to play basketball @ Duke. Our staff and especially coach K worked on him for so long only to see him go elsewhere... im sure we'll see our fair share of "coack K cant recruit anymore" vs. "our recruiting is fine we just won a NC 2 yrs ago" on this board over the next several months. I think coach k, his recruiting, and our program are fine, but this one is just a little frustrating seeing as we were on him for so long. In addition we seemed to somewhat seperate ourselves from ellis/poythress and also missed on mcgary/muhammed and were involved with at least 5 other guys in this class at some point or another but ended up with only 1 with a shot at 1 more. and i know people are gonna say "well we had a 5 man class the year before" but really that 5 man class consists of QC, MP, and AM, or just QC if you want to throw MP and AM in with RS for this years class... anyway, as i said earlier i think we're fine and i think Coach K is great etc. its just a little disappointing that we decided to "cast a wide net" for this class and ended up with 1 player, maybe 2.

Things happen....I like the potential of the 2013 and 2014 bigs for Duke; moreso than I ever liked Parker to be honest. The only person I regret Duke choosing not to go after was Alex P. I get the reasons why and hindsight is always 20-20; but that's one player I would've loved to have in the fold for Duke. That said....I like what I've seen of Jabari Parker way more than Alex P. Next play!!!!