Must... resist urge... to allow myself to hope... for the impossible...
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-bas...ft-parents-say
So does anybody actually buy this? Kylia goes off on how college basketball is just a huge con less than 2 weeks ago, and now she is encouraging Wendell to stay at Duke?
That would be a dream come true (I <3 Wendell Carter), but come on. Let's be real. He should go to the NBA.
Must... resist urge... to allow myself to hope... for the impossible...
At the beginning of the season, I truly thought Wendell would be most likely to return among our OAD candidates because he is a scholar at heart. The fact that he seriously contemplated going to Harvard over Duke shows that. While I hate to get my hopes up, I am not entirely surprised about his wavering here. I think he goes...reminds me of Jabari's hesitation before he ultimately declared.
Sure, he considered it (and his mom wanted him to go to Harvard), but he still chose the best basketball decision, which was Duke. I think this is the same thing all over again. He'll hem and haw over the decision, but will end up doing the best basketball thing once again. I think a few of our past OADs have done the same song and dance. As you said, Jabari comes to mind.
Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE if he came back for another year. He was by far my personal favorite of the 2017 freshmen class, and IMO he was the most important player on the team (Marvin is more talented, but Wendell was more key to our success). I think Wendell's foul trouble against KU was the #1 reason we missed out on the Final Four.
But this is a charade. He's going pro.
Last edited by kAzE; 04-11-2018 at 12:04 PM.
I would love a year 2 of Wendell but go young man. Your talent and gift has a short and delicate shelf life.
Mirabile dictu -- Mom wants him to stay in school -- Dad wants him to go.
I agree exactly with his Mom's words. The NBA is no place for a 19-YO with so much intellectual interest and talent. The money will be there (and so is Lloyd's of London ad interim)."I told him I wanted him to come back [to school]," Carter's mom, Kylia, told The Undefeated. "His jaw dropped. It has nothing to do with basketball. It's about you. It's about who he is. He is a student at core. Yes, he is a great basketball player. But he's an 18-year-old kid. He is having a tug with a heart and his mind. I don't feel for him because I think it's good for him that he is going through this struggle. It's his decision. He has to live with it."
Wendell Carter Sr. said it is his son's decision, but "I have always tried to keep Wendell ahead of any curve. ... I think it would be a good decision for him to go."
Come back, Wendell! Come back to Duke for one more year.
Last edited by sagegrouse; 04-11-2018 at 12:00 PM.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
If mama ain't happy, no one is happy.
I remember Luol Deng saying how much he loved Duke and wanted to stay, right before he declared. Then a year later he talked about how much he missed Duke and wished he could have stayed. It’s like being kicked in the crotch repeatedly.
We should pause to appreciate what Mom is saying here - that coming back would make him a better person and improve his quality of life. It's refreshing to hear that it isn't always just about the money. In fact, we as fans have no idea how much the money gets in the way of living a truly happy life and what it does to the character of these kids being millionaires before they are even 20. If we really care about these kids, I don't think we should just automatically say leaving is the right thing to do so you can make your millions even faster...
Between Mama Carter's quotes about college basketball after the tourney and favoring staying in college in this article I'm feeling a little dizzy...My guess is that she still doesn't think a required stop in college basketball makes sense for a top pro prospect; however, she's also the one who has seen the most how intelligent, academically oriented, well-rounded, etc. Wendell has been his whole life, and is now fighting to highlight those qualities again as the world starts to increasingly see him exclusively for his basketball ability. I still can't imagine there's any way he stays, but it did take me 'til pretty late in the game to accept that UVA could conceivably lose to UMBC, so who knows...
Hang on... the same mom who said college basketball is a "con" and talked about how it was unfair that he was forced to go to even one year of college is now pushing her son to come back to school? Whaaaat?
I will say this -- in the current top-heavy NBA draft class, Carter is seen as somewhere between the 8th and 12th pick in the draft. If he came back, he would likely be seen as the #2 or #3 pick in the weaker 2019 draft class (as of right now, I suspect only RJ Barrett would be higher on draft boards). The difference in being the #8 pick in 2018 ($10.4 mil in 3 year salary) versus being even #2 in 2019 ($18.7 mil over the first 3 years) is pretty darn significant. Now, obviously the impact of being a free agent a year earlier and earning zero dollars this year versus earning $2.9 mil (first year salary of the #8 pick) makes it sorta hard for the guy who stays in school to make it up, but if you get drafted several lottery picks higher after staying school, I think a solid financial argument can be made that sticking around to enhance your already high draft stock is a good move. Plus, if you are eventually going to be signing big new contracts down the road as a NBA star then these rookie dollars are pretty inconsequential.
The real risk, of course, is that you come back and don't improve your draft stock or your get hurt. Those are the disasters -- as someone like Josh McRoberts or James Michael McAdoo can attest after they returned to school despite lottery draft grades and saw their stock plummet into the 2nd round (though McJosh did quite nicely once he showed some NBA talent and JMM at least got a couple rings from the Warriors as well as $2+ mil in NBA salary thus far).
I can't even begin to imagine Carter will do it, but if he got a good insurance policy that protected him from a perilous draft plunge due to injury, it is not a terrible financial decision.
-Jason "24 hours ago, I would have said there was a 0% chance of him coming back... I now give it a solid 1-2% chance... woo hoo!!" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
C'mon folks, don't do this to yourselves. He's not coming back.
I guess I would reconcile the mom’s comments as such: earlier her quotes said that going to college does not make sense as a business decision. From a purely financial standpoint, the risk of getting injured and the lack of income does not outweigh the educational experience, hence the “all con” comment. But if Wendell decides to return, it would not be a business decision. It would be done for other reasons - personal development, gaining more of an education, etc. So those two notions can coexist.
It’s also possible that when the earlier comments were made, emotions were running high after the loss to Kansas, and things have settled down and the family can analyze things more objectively.
This is just me trying to make sense of things, and also to create a reason for him to come back. It’s more likely he goes anyways, and these comments were made to put forth the narrative that he is a kid who cares deeply about education (just like the idea of him going to Harvard).
I'm happy that Wendell Carter chose Duke as the destination to spend his one year as a college basketball player.
It is worth noting that this does happen with some degree of regularity. At this time last year, Miles Bridges made almost the exact same decision to return to Michigan State. Seen as a late-lottery pick, he came back to school expecting to have a huge season and be launched into the top of the lottery. It did not work out for him though it was not a disaster either as he is again seen as a mid-lottery pick (he probably goes 2-4 spots higher this year than he would have a year ago).
Blake Griffin did this back when he was at Oklahoma -- projected as a mid-late lottery guy he came back to school and dominated and was the #1 pick in the next draft. He's gone on to make huuuuge money and I am certain he does not regret for a moment his decision to take a second season at Oklahoma (one of the best seasons in the history of that program). Harrison Barnes also chose to return to school rather than being a mid-lottery pick. His stock did not improve either, but it did not go down and he too has made many many millions in the NBA since then.
My mind is blanking at the moment. I am sure there are many other guys who have done it. I also feel like Carter's situation is different from someone like McRoberts or JMM who were going to be drafted in the lottery based largely on potential, not on actual game results as they did not play a ton as a freshman. When they came back and were not nearly as dominant as expected in their soph campaigns, their stock fell because the potential label had worn off. Carter is in a different boat as he has already shown he is among the most skilled big men in the country. No reason to expect his stock to falter if he chooses to come back.
-Jason "he'd be preseason player of the year, that's for sure... am I starting to talk myself into this?!?!" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Everyone has already covered why he's not coming back. But I'll also add this, given the thread's title:
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
I can't state enough how much I loved watching Wendell play. He's just sublime on the court. He's got amazing talent and an unbelievable basketball-brain. And those are the reasons he'll make some NBA team very happy next season.