I'd take college basketball over the NBA any day of the week. I grew up watching Tobacco Road ball, and I think the game is usually more teamwork-oriented than the NBA which seems to be dominated by a me-first attitude. But if I was coach Mike Krzyzewski, I may have left Duke.
The reasons that Krzyzewski stayed to coach the Blue Devils are innumerable. He built a small private school with extremely high academic standards into one of the nation's elite programs. He did this while competing in the public school-laden ACC, the toughest conference in the game. His record speaks to his ability and talent as a coach, particularly his three national championships, two of them coming back to back in 1991 and 1992. He is treated like a god in Durham, where the court is named after him, as is the student camp town Krzyzewskiville that appears each winter before home games. There should be little or no motivation to leave a place where you were offered and signed what amounts to a lifetime contract.
Not only is Duke a perfect place for Krzyzewski, the cautionary tales of college coaches entering the professional ranks should have deterred him almost immediately. Rick Pitino's experience on its own should scare any coach away from making that jump. And while it's a different sport, Steve Spurrier showed that many times the change is tougher than a coach expects.
But I don't think that would have been enough to keep me from taking the chance on Los Angeles. First off, it's $40 million. Now, Krzyzewski must be financially secure beyond the point of making a decision solely based on money. But $40 million is $40 million, and no matter who you are, that's a ton of money.
The current state of the college game, though, would be what would force me to strongly consider the Lakers job. Duke used to be a program that rarely lost players to the NBA draft, but in the past few years, early exits by athletes like Elton Brand, Corey Magette and now freshman Loul Deng have given Krzyzewski the same problems other coaches have been dealing with for many years. You must recruit the most talented, the most dominating players to win and keep your job. Unfortunately, by signing these players, a college coach risks having a player play for just one or two years. It must be frustrating to work so hard to get a player like Deng, but lose him after just one year to the millions available in the pros. Just when you think you've fixed a player's shooting motion or helped him click with the offensive system, he is donning a bad suit and an NBA-licensed hat on ESPN during the lottery.
When it reaches that point, a coach has to realize that he can count on not having players around for long and seeing graduation rates reduced to minimal numbers, like everybody's favorite proponent of higher education, Cincinnati's Bob Huggins.
In the NBA, though, you at least have players for as long as their contracts last, or until they complain long enough so that they are traded. Even with a trade, however, you get something in return. The Blue Devils get nothing for Deng's early exit to the NBA, besides a gaping hole at forward.
So while many believe Krzyzewski made the easy, obvious decision to stay at Duke, I'm not sure it was a simple choice at all.
On an interesting note, many people may be ignoring the impact this decision could have on Virginia basketball. We are all aware of the controversy that surrounds our own basketball coach, Pete Gillen, and his status at Virginia. While I don't believe Gillen should be let go, if the department did release him, we would need to find an extremely qualified candidate to improve our program. A friend of mine pointed out that with Krzyzewski staying, Johnny Dawkins remains an assistant for Duke, instead of possibly being promoted to head coach. If Virginia needs to hire a coach in the next two years, why not Dawkins? He has experience in one of the nation's elite programs under a coach coveted by what is arguably the most prestigious franchise in the NBA. He is also young and has been around the ACC and the recruiting game that goes with it for nine seasons.
Sure, it's a long shot that Virginia would hire Dawkins, but in the meantime, ACC fans should be excited that they will get to watch one of the all-time coaching greats for years to come, Mike Krzyzewski.
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