Gene Banks said on the ACC Now podcast the other day that Nolan's departure for Louisville wasn't as "peachy" as it seemed to the public. Very intrigued on what would cause that. He also had some other interesting comments that make that episode worth a listen..
I may have missed the "not peachy" part of the discussion, I did eventually tune it out when it seemed nothing new was being posted. I recall everyone hastening to talk about how Nolan going off on his own on good terms is a healthy thing and everyone was happy for him.
I'm gonna politely ask folks not to dredge this up again. If there were hard feelings or anything like that, it has clearly blown over at this point and no one in the media has publicly reported any details about it. So, I think that the DBR's rumor rules likely prevent us from saying much more than that.
And, yes... there is more than a little irony in me being the person who is shutting this down
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
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If we hired Amaker, Coach K would likely have cemented his legacy by watching Duke MBB collapse after he left, thereby showing how great he was. I still don't understand why Amaker was a serious candidate. HIs track record showed that he clearly was not up to managing a major program. We've known for years that Scheyer was considered an up-and-coming prodigy. He wouldn't have gotten a job of this caliber right away without being associated with the university, but he was definitely getting a power conference job very soon. Amaker coached 10 seasons in power conferences and made the tournament once. It's great that he's successful at Harvard, but he's found his level of competence.
Whoa, y’all sure decided to stir up the hornets’ nest with these recent comments. I’m surprised this thread hasn’t gone viral as a result.
You should probably brace yourselves anyway. 😉
All of this criticism of our own guys--we either need to start competing against other programs or just shut down some of these threads.
Coach K would be the 1st to point out that he won all of his games without personally scoring a field goal or taking a charge. We have had a long roster of amazing players, many of whom have gone on to careers in basketball, sometimes in coaching.
Tommy Amaker was a great player. Maybe he wasn't as good as his running mate whose jersey hangs from the rafters, but Dawkins was among the greatest athletes to ever put on any sort of Duke uniform. Amaker was probably as important/good as Mark Alarie, who could also make a claim to have his number retired. A few years before them, Gene Banks might also deserve the honor: not only was he a great player and an absolutely pivotal Black recruit who flexed his muscles to show that Duke would celebrate a wide variety of excellence, but Banks also graduated from Duke at the exact same time as a guy who--like Gene--was an English major but whose vertical leap would be the lowest ever recorded (me). Banks also gave one of the best graduation speeches I've heard, likening each of us to people playing our own instrument in the Duke orchestra, and, with graduation, it is our responsibility to use that instrument in the world, creating our own symphonies wherever we happen to land (or somesuch; it's been 40 years since I heard it).
But I digress.
No need to denigrate Amaker on a Duke fan site. He was a star PG on teams that allowed K to keep his job. He's head basketball coach at the nation's most prestigious university. He's been head coach at two P5 schools. We should all have such careers. If Scheyer hadn't injured his eye (which led him back into coaching very quickly, setting him up to be ready for the role), Amaker would likely have been the choice. Or maybe the job would have gone to any number of Duke guys who are currently HC's around the country. None is as successful as K, but unless Wooden comes back from the dead, there is no one who could claim an equivalent career to K. And as most of us know, we didn't get Coach K in 1980, we got a Coach Krzyzewski, who seemed likely to be fair to middlin', as is true for most coaches. And who likely would have gotten fired without Dawkins, Alarie, and Amaker, who might not have arrived at Duke if they hadn't seen Gene Banks on Sports Illustrated covers.
I could say much the same thing about some of the criticism about Trevor Keels (and I've joined in to some extent, so I'm partially giving myself a pep talk). Since I would like for Duke to win the NC this year, I'd like Keels to stick around. And I'd like AJ Green to join him. I can argue that such a move would be wins for everyone, but (of course) I'd be talking out of my wanker if I truly believed that I knew what was best for any of these guys. But I do know it feels a little strange to get so down on our own guys, especially since we've been fortunate to have gotten to watch dozens and dozens of exceptional players play for K, and with maybe a few exceptions, all have been absolutely top notch reps of the university.
There is, of course, always a recency bias (except when there's an antiquity bias), but any stage which would feature Duke players with great careers both in college and afterward, would have to include a chair for Mr. Amaker. And I'm open minded if you disagree, but I would also know you're wrong.
I don’t think any of us are critiquing Tommy or saying anything really inflammatory. We’re reacting to the suggestion that hiring Amaker might have been better for K’s legacy in some way. I don’t even think that wades into the waters of criticism much, unless it’s now completely off limits to make anything but positive assessments of Duke’s guys.
I agree. A critique would be an analysis of Tommy's ability to teach the pick-and-roll or perhaps his pitch when he presents basketball opportunities to prospective student athletes on a campus that couldn't care less about watching college basketball games or how he balances off basketball and academics or how he combines his role as HC with being a special asst to the president of Harvard. I think those would be critiques. I'm not sure any of us have any way of knowledgably critiquing those things, though a lot of us (including me) give it a shot from time to time.
I don't think "critique" is the word when we vaguely disparage someone's life's work, especially the work of someone like Amaker, who is in the pantheon of Duke greats. It's even trickier when the comment is meant to refute the opinion of another of Duke's greats. I didn't read Banks's comments, and have only 2nd hand info about the search process, but, yeah, in this case, I'd prefer that we say that we had an embarrassment of riches when it came time to pick a successor. I think it's true, but it's also more respectful to the people involved.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I'd add that we tend to feel Duke has come a long way since the mid 1970's in terms of equity and inclusion, but Duke's reputation for elitism has only increased; when guys who fought the wars speak out, which they do very occasionally, I'm okay with sitting quietly.
Well, that's obviously incomplete/untrue, since I'm gabbing away on this sunny Saturday.
Btw, I didn't mean to single you out. I meant my initial line, that without an opponent, we tend to snipe at our own guys, which kinda bugs me.