I actually do think Dukehky's comment is relevant, in that a major reason Parker is waiting is to see which team(s) will have the most immediate playing time available. It's at least a decent inference to make as far as why he might push his decision back to right after the deadline.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't blame the NCAA for the sad state of affairs in college basketball as much as I would blame the NBA. The one-and-done rule, which apparently was simply put on the back burner when the last CBA was hammered out, is a scourge of college basketball. If what JWill described - that top recruits care more about preserving draft status than winning at the college level - is accurate, it is about the worst thing college fans could hope for.
Stuff like this makes me miss guys like Singler and Battier.
Only stuff like this?!?! Just kidding.
As a program, Duke is second to none in attracting top quality players who stay 4 years. Hurley, Hill, Laettner, Battier, Shelden, JJ, Singler....we've been incredibly lucky.
To a lesser extent, UNC has been lucky too. Just off the top of my head, Hansbrough, Tyler Zeller....hmm...I can't think of any more.
Regardless, I am always wondering who our next "Top-Flight 4 Year Player" is going to be. I sometimes catch myself daydreaming about the beauty of having a transformative player like that in the system. It must make a coach's job/life much easier.
Think about what a difference Singler made as soon as he hit the floor. Just huge.
I don't want to derail this thread nor is it my intention to come across as attacking your opinion; but how can we yearn for the fabulous 4 year college player and yet want the staff to recruit and get the best talent to come to Duke when the best talent now are most likely 1-2 year players. In this day and age, a coaching staff is lucky to keep the best players 3 years; and if they stay that long or longer, you have coaches on other teams using that as a negative recrutiting tactic against you in recruiting. Based on the rules, I think teams in the future will have to move closer towards the "Kentucky" model of one and done in order to compete for NCs. That said, I don't Duke has to become like Kentucky by no means; but the staff is adjusting its recruiting to go after at least one potentially one and done recruit in each incoming class. And I think that is an acknowledgement of the changing times in college basketball.
In regards to Parker, right or wrong, he is looking for the best opportunity for playing time and opportunity to position himself to be drafted in the first round of the NBA as opposed to winning a NC imo. I'm fine with TP's desires as long as if he comes to Duke, he commits and buys in fully into the Duke system and coaching staff for however long he is at Duke. I think there is a need for Parker at Duke and if he works hard, I think he has a chance to make an impact at some point.
This is an unfortunate truth for a college basketball fan (I am not willing to speak for the player as to whether it is unfortunate or not), but I don't think "one and done" changes it that much. The fact is, as much as *we* love college basketball, it's a required (and, arguably, unnecessary) step to the elite high school players' true goal. I imagine most of these players that leave early had fun at their respective schools, enjoyed the time there, and loved their fans, teammates and coaches. But at the same time, given the choice between college and the NBA, even the D-League, almost all of them will choose the latter. The D-League isn't the waste land many people on these boards deem it to be. It's a legitimate minor league system. If we get rid of "one and done" we go back to what we had with a dozen or more high school kids declaring each year. If we extend it past one year, I could see players start to weigh other options -- including Europe -- more than they are now.
There really isn't a solution. Times have just changed.
Very True...But then I wonder if Parker believes he's a 2-3yr player max and is looking for the school that will allow him to accomplish this (or at least may be swayed by recruiting pitches of coaches that say he can be that type of player if he comes to their school); and unfortunately, if Parker stayed for 4 years at Duke, I could see that being used against Duke and coaching staff in recruiting future post players.
Setting admissions issues aside, if a guy believes he has the opportunity to leave after 1 year, I don't imagine that is going to turn Duke off his recruitment unless K doesn't believe that player can crack the starting lineup as a freshman. We knew the risk of taking Luol Deng in 2003 and Rivers this year.
So if Parker is talented enough and otherwise meets Duke's criteria for admissions, I hope we aren't telling him don't come here if you plan on leaving after a year. And I especially hope we aren't telling him not to come if he plans on leaving after year 2 or 3, because that probably means he's been pretty good for us. The correct pitch is that we would love to have you here for 4 years, but if your play and ability rate you as a high draft pick, or other circumstances are at play, we understand and respect your decision. If, however, we don't think he is good enough to contribute significantly next year, and he is of a different opinion on his "one and done-ness", then that's a different story. But we better be damn right on that evaluation.
In modern college basketball terms, I'd say UNC has been lucky to retain some talented players, not just Zeller and Hansbrough for 4 years, but others who end up staying 3 years or even 2 years when they were thought to be perhaps one-and-done guys. Their 2009 championship team had Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, and Danny Green as 3rd year players who had considered leaving the previous year. Even the 2012 Tar Heels roster included Henson and Barnes, as well as Zeller, who were highly recruited players who conceivably could have gone one-and-done, but stuck around longer.
I'm not sure if this was a grand plan by Ole Roy, just circumstances, or the attraction of college life in Chapel Hill, but things have worked out fairly well for them.
(on the luck side, the injury bug this past season was decidedly bad luck)
I get what you're saying, but it's incomplete. For one, why shouldn't they care about that? It's definitely going to be a factor if a kid thinks he's good enough to play right away, regardless of what we think about that mentality. Our priorities are not theirs. And who's to say joining a team that has a good chance to win isn't on his list of qualifications?
I think that ESPN article really elucidated Parker's thought process. It's not so black and white, he has some really provocative and well-reasoned opinions about the schools he's considering, including ours.
That's a fair point, Starter, and I'll be the first to admit that I can't really put myself in Parker's shoes. First, I've never had the chance to get paid to play basketball for a living and second, I didn't come from a background of poverty. Furthermore, the fact that college players generate billions of dollars of income for other people without getting anything for themselves is absurd...but that is veering pretty far from the topic of this thread.
What I would say though, and this is where it will be interesting to see what type of kid Parker is, is that there is a fine line between a kid who comes in with the goal of winning first and going pro second and vice-versa. I thought Kyrie, for example, did an awesome job of being a great team member and, during those 11 games we got to see him wear a Duke jersey, did everything he could to help the team win. From what I've seen it seems like MKG on Kentucky is another example of a kid who is dedicated to winning first and foremost (ironically they both played for St. Pats...). Even though those guys had/have the stated goal of being one-and-done, to my eye it didn't change their approach to the game at all.
On the other extreme, you get a kid like Barnes who is pre-occupied with his "brand" to the point of distraction, and to be brutally honest, a kid like Austin who I think the jury may still be out on as far as playing within the team concept. The trouble for these guys is that they're going to have to be team players at the next level (they can't all be Kobe), and GMs will almost certainly factor in their attitude when they decide who to draft.
I'm hoping that despite the hoopla and hype Parker has spun up with the recruitment process, he comes to college with the intention of unpacking his bags. Given his projected high-but-not-superior talent level, I'm afraid that if he locks in to the one-and-done concept it could end up miserably for both him and the school he chooses. I agree that he comes off as a great kid in the ESPN piece, but the road to (basketball purgatory) is paved with good intentions. For his sake I hope he keeps his head screwed on straight, puts his team's needs before his own, and is ultimately rewarded handsomely for doing so.
Real good stuff here, I agree with basically all of it. A couple of points:
- A non-sequitor, but you're dead-on with St. Pat's. Dexter Strickland, another great kid, is further evidence. I went to a lot of their games the past few years to watch Kyrie and Kidd-Gilchrist, and got involved with the program. I went to a fundraiser for the school back in October, and the school community is as tight-knit as ours is here. (Kyrie was there, BTW.) RIP to a great program.
- With Parker, you're 100 percent correct. I hope the same thing for him in terms of viewing himself as a one-and-done, especially since I've seen him play live, and I was markedly unimpressed relative to his size and level of hype. Parker has skill and he's big, but he has a LOT of work to do to get to where he needs to be. In that sense, Duke would be a perfect spot for him since he'd have to work for what he gets. Whether that's really what he wants is your guess and mine, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Work hard and win, the rest takes care of itself -- let's hope he sees that, because he'll end up in the right place at the same time.
I have the same impression of Parker, and it worries me. He sometimes seems like a great, happy-go-lucky, fun to be around kid, but other times well, not so much. Seems kinda entitled and maybe with an inflated sense of his own skills and therfore an inflated sense of how one-and-done-worthy he really is. Don't get me wrong -- I could be WAY off on this and Tony's not like that at all. I hope that's the case. But when I saw the ESPN piece on The Roundtable, what struck me was his reluctance to want to lose weight. When I saw him play last summer, he looked overweight and disinterested, and DaJuan Coleman ate him alive. I've read others who say he's out of shape and overweight now.
What concerns me is if we're lucky enough to get him, but he shows up overweight, not wanting to work hard to lose the weight or play the game with the kind of energy and focus that'll be required, so he doesn't play as much as he thinks he should, doesn't have as much success as he thinks he's entitled to have, and gets disenchanted with Duke. Providing more "evidence" of how we can't develop bigs.
I know, I'm projecting a lot of stuff onto TP, and projecting worst case scenarios here, which I don't think I'm usually prone to do, but something about TP gnaws at me. I think it's the sense of entitlement that I think I sense from him more so than others in his position. Again, I could be way off here, and I hope I am and that we get him and he's willing to work hard to become the outstanding college (and pro) player that we'd all love him to be.
anyone seen him play lately? is he out/in shape?
"One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese
Man, I loved Andre the Giant. That guy was crazy!
Easily in better shape than Josh Smith, now or in high school. Probably in decently better shape than Sean May, but May was a totally awesome player regardless until he got to the pros.
In an interesting training technique, Parker played the entire game with Manute Bol on his back.