I can see Pearl ending up on TV somewhere next season.  He is a very telegenic personality and would do well on TV a-la Jim Valvano.

One can only assume they will be looking at VCU’s Shaka Smart to take Pearl’s place.

Notre Dame’s Michael Floyd has the talent to be a top pick, but his personal life may keep him from a big payday right out of college.  His drinking issues could end up costing him a ton of money this time next year.  He could end up being next year’s Warren Sapp.

It sounds more and more like Auburn’s Nick Fairley could end up as this year’s Warren Sapp.  All of the pre-draft chatter has teams being a bit concerned about his character and the fact that the first year he is draft eligible he decides to play up to his talent level.

If the Eagles put Kevin Kolb up for bid prior to the draft look for them to maneuver high enough up in the draft to be able to nab Nebraska’s Prince Amukamara or possibly Patrick Peterson.  It seems unlikely, though, that they will be able to move up high enough to grab Peterson.  There is expected to be a strong market for Kolb if the Eagles look to move him.

It is being rumored that the Seahawks are showing an interest, but with a lack of blue chip talent at the position in the upcoming the draft the Eagles may be hoping a team like the 49ers or the Cardinals step up and offer their first round pick for him.

The Knicks are now 7-8 since the Carmelo Anthony trade.

I cannot help but wonder whether Shaka Smart will be coaching elsewhere next season.  With openings at Georgia Tech and North Carolina State it is going to be tough for Virginia Commonwealth to hang onto him.

Remember when everyone was up in arms about VCU being given a shot at a play-in game over the likes of Colorado and Virginia Tech?

Has anyone’s stock risen more than Harrison Barnes’ the last few weeks.  He has really come on the second half of the season and is a huge reason the Tar Heels won the regular season conference title and ended up as a #2 seed when, early on, it looked like they were destined to be an 8 or 9 seed.

John Henson is one of the most maddening players to watch.  He is always going to rebound and defend, but some games he has a great offensive presence and others it seems like he is barely there.  He strikes me as a taller, longer version of Tyrus Thomas or Tyson Chandler.  I doubt he will ever dominate on the offensive end in the NBA, but guys like Chandler can make good career out of being a dominant rebounder and shot blocker.

Jimmer Fredette is going to be the guy who gets taken too high in the draft and will not amount to anything in the NBA.  About the best a team can hope for is he is a J. J. Redick type of player who can give a team 25 minutes and 10 points per game off the bench.  He simply does not have the height, the athleticism, or the defensive ability to be a starter in the NBA.

Duke

Duke wins the National Championship in what very well may be Coach K’s best coaching job to-date.  This is easily the least talented of his four championship teams.  The past Duke championship teams were typically filled with an All-American or two and contenders for the national player of the year.  This year’s squad has no All-Americans, no Naismith contenders, and quite frankly none of the players on this year’s teams are seen as potential NBA lottery picks.

Don’t get me wrong some of the kids on this year’s team will play in the NBA.  Jon Scheyer will probably get a shot to make a NBA team as a 3-point shooter off the bench, Nolan Smith will probably get a shot at being a scoring guard off the bench, and Kyle Singler will definitely be drafted by someone once he leaves Duke, and there are those who think Brian Zoubek will have the longest NBA career simply because he is seven feet tall and is willing to do grunt work under the rim.

Scheyer is a borderline draft pick but should get a shot to earn an invitation to camp via the summer league circuit.

Smith is not expected to leave school this spring and is probably a second round prospect at this stage.  In watching the title game one could see why K made the choice to go with Scheyer at the point and move Smith to playing primarily off the ball.  If Smith can come back and show an ability to run an offense during his senior year he could mature into a first rounder.  As it is he looks more like a candidate to be a guy who gives a team ten points a game off the bench.

Singler has the best shot at being a first round pick and is seen by some as a borderline lottery prospect.  His stock is going to be on the rise given how well he played the last couple of months of the season.  I never realized how well he can defend until he locked down Gordon Hayward in the championship game.  The problem with Singler is he is not perceived as a good athlete and does a little bit of everything on the floor but does not excel at any one thing.

Kentucky

John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson, Eric Bledsoe, and Daniel Orton all announced they are putting their names in the NBA draft.  On the surface this looks horrible for Kentucky.  While I think Wall, Cousins, and Patterson are as good as gone I think there is a decent chance Bledsoe and Orton could be back next season.  Wall and Cousins are practically mortal locks to be top five picks this summer while Patterson should end up being a lottery pick.  Orton and Bledsoe are not seen as locks to go in the lottery and quite frankly neither guy showed they are ready to be NBA players while at Kentucky.

Butler

A lot of folks are saying Butler should be a top five team heading into next year with all of their top players likely coming back next season.  While their players may be back will coach Brad Stevens be back next season?  Oregon is rumored to be preparing a pretty sweet financial package to bring Stevens out west and two decent jobs just came open in the ACC with Oliver Purnell jumping ship at Clemson to take the job at DePaul and Wake Forest firing Dino Gaudio.

The hot rumor is that Stevens is atop Wake’s list of preferred candidates.  One has to think that job would be awfully attractive to a guy like Stevens.  Wake is a similar school to Butler in that it is a small private school.  The caveat would be the chance to coach in the ACC and make a little more coin than Butler will pay.  It should be interesting to see how things play out.

One has to think if Stevens jumps ship there is a decent chance Gordon Hayward puts his name in the draft rather than stick around and potentially play in a different system for a different coach.  I expect if there is any inkling that Stevens is fielding offers Hayward will at the very least put his name in the draft and see how things unfold before deciding ultimately what to do.  Hayward is seen as a solid first round prospect right now.

Final Thought

A lot has been made about whether or not to recruit one-and-done players of late and whether elite programs need to bite the bullet and recruit them to remain competitive.  This year’s tournament is a testament to how overrated recruiting can be and that a team does not need the elite recruiting classes to win a NCAA Championship.

How many legit NBA prospects are on this year’s Duke squad?  How about Butler, West Virginia, or Michigan State for that matter?  The hyped teams that have two or three players who will likely go in the first round of this year’s draft all failed to reach the Final Four.  They lost to teams that were veteran teams with significantly less talent.

This year’s Final Four shows us how overrated athleticism and talent can be in basketball and how much it matters to have a cohesive team that has played together for a couple of years and executes well.  The one common thread of this year’s Final Four teams is they were solid cores that had been together for more than one season, defended well, and executed well.  The teams that were a collection of traveling All Stars all wilted under the pressure when they got punched in the mouth by supposedly inferior teams.

Just consider that the top NBA prospects in this year’s Final Four were Devin Ebanks, Da’Sean Butler, and Gordon Hayward.  None of these are considered locks to go in the lottery and are generally considered fringe lottery picks at best.

Mark me as someone who is selling this as a real possibility.  While K might be the top choice I have a hard time believing he has any real interest in coaching the NBA.  He has always steadfastly denied he has even the slightest interest in jumping to the NBA.  Why would he?

He is one of a select few of elite college coaches in America that has lifetime job security.  He resurrected Duke basketball from the doldrums and made them a relevant national power again.  He can do whatever he wants at Duke and retire on his own time.  While Duke has slipped a bit in terms of its success over the years it is still maintains one of the highest profiles in college basketball.  Coach K has made more than enough money to retire on at Duke and makes enough to live more than comfortably.

The only two compelling reasons for K to do this would be to see whether he could succeed in the NBA, or, he was simply looking for one last payday in his career.  He would easily command $30 to $40 million for a five year deal which would set up his financial security for sure.  The thing is Krzyzewski has never impressed one as being that driven by money.  If he was he would have jumped at the reported $10 million per year the Lakers offered him when Phil Jackson took his brief hiatus from the team.

The thing the Nets have to ask themselves is if K turned down both the Celtics and the Lakers, the two most pre-eminent franchises in the league, at various times during his career what makes them think he has any interest in coaching their sad sack organization?  There is not a basketball coach alive who will tell you their dream job is coaching the New Jersey Nets.

North Carolina is probably going to lose a game or two it has no business losing this season, but, it will also win a game or two it probably should not win.  They just do not have the 3-point shooting or ball handling depth it had last season and that is going to come back to bite them at times this year.  Something tells me they are going to split their games with Kentucky and Texas.  Somehow, some way they will find a way to beat one of those two teams.

Someone will take a second round flyer on Deon Thompson simply because he is a UNC big man and he will promptly earn a spot at the end of some team’s bench.  I have never seen someone as talented as him make so many mind-numbingly bad plays.

I am a huge believer in Ed Davis’ talent, but, I think he is one of those guys who needs three years of college ball if he wants to succeed in the NBA.  He needs to get a little bigger and to work on his offense a bit more.  A lot of points seem to be garbage points and not as a result of him getting the ball in the post.

Larry Drew II seems to play a bit better every time I see him play.  He still makes some bad decisions and the key for his success will be limiting his turnovers.  One major improvement in his game has been his overall shot selection and his accuracy.  He is shooting .558 from the field thus far and has already made more 3-point field goals in 8 games this season than he did in 38 all of last season.

Duke’s Nolan Smith is one of the most improved players I have seen this year.  He is finally playing like the guy Coach K thought he was getting when he recruited him three years ago.

Andre Dawkins has been impressive for Duke thus far.  He shot Duke back into the game against Wisconsin with four big three-pointers in the second half.  He has hit on 55.6% of his three-point attempts and leads the Blue Devils with 20 triples in their first seven games.  After starting the year hitting 6 of his first 18 three-point field goal attempts Dawkins has hit on 14 of his last 18 attempts and is averaging 11 points in 19 minutes per game off the bench.  Not bad for a kid who was supposed to be playing his senior year of high school ball this winter.

I was impressed with what I saw out of Ohio State’s Evan Turner.  He has two triple-doubles and six double-doubles in his first seven games for the Buckeyes.  He is one of those guys who always seems to be around the ball and makes plays.  The biggest knocks on his game right now are his ball-handling, he is turning it over 4.4 times per game, and he is only a so-so 3-point shooter.  For him to excel at the next level the 6′ 7″ wing player is going to have to develop a consistent jumper.

Syracuse’s Wesley Johnson is another wing player who is raising some eyebrows around the country.  He can flat out shoot the ball and is a good shot blocker and rebounder for a guy his size.

After Clemson’s epic second half meltdown against Illinois the other night one has to wonder if Oliver Purnell’s seat is getting a little warm down in Death Valley.  Purnell needs to start showing he can win some games of significance.  After six years he may need to win a tournament game or two to save his job.  Early season losses to Texas A&M and Illinois is not a good way to start off the year.

Let us take a look at the last draft, 2005, to allow high school players as an example.  Martell Webster was the top high school player taken in that draft going to Portland at number six.  Webster started 18 games his rookie season averaging 6.6 points and shooting .399 from the field for a team that won 21 games that year.  During his first three years in the league Webster has developed into a quality 3-point shooter who even started 70 games his third year in the season.  To-date his best season has seen him score 10.7 points per game.  The player taken immediatly after Webster, Charlie Villanueva, played college ball and enjoyed the best season of his career last year posting career highs in scoring, 16.7 points per game, and rebounding, 6.7 rebounds per game.

The next high school player taken in that draft, Andrew Bynum, has shown flashes of being an all star center but he has struggled mightily with injuries and maturity.  He averaged a career high 14.3 points per game this past season but he also missed 30 games and was merely a big body taking up space on the floor during the playoffs.  It was not until his third season in the league that Bynum was any kind of a siginificant contributer to the success of the Lakers.

Gerald Green, the third high school player taken in the ’05 draft going to Boston at number 18 looked like he was going to be the next big thing his first couple of years in Boston.  He won the dunk contest and averaged 10.4 points a game by the end of his second year in the league and it seemed the sky was the limit for this young budding star in Boston.  Sadly, it was not to be for the young Green and he has wallowed away on the bench in Minnesota, Houston, and Dallas the past two seasons managing to appear in only 68 games over that time span.

Of the 14 players from the 2006 draft who have career scoring averages of 10 or more points per game only one player entered the NBA directly of high school and that was Monta Ellis who lasted all the way until the 40th pick of the draft.  Ellis was not ready to play straight away when he got to Golden State, he struggled to adapt quite a bit to the NBA game averaging just 6.8 points per game and shooting .415 from the field.

Out of the 8 high school players to be taken in that draft only Monta Ellis has established himself as a potential all star while Bynum looks like a stud in the middle,  and Martell Webster, Andray Blatche, Lou Williams, C. J. Miles and Amir Johnson have carved out niches as role players in the league.  None of these players contributed immediately while several of the college players taken in that draft like Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Danny Granger are budding all stars and in Paul’s case superstars.

The 2004 draft had slightly different results but the trends are still hold fairly true.  The first player taken in that draft was indeed a high school star in Dwight Howard and he has gone on to become one of the best young big men in the game today.  He was ready to play in the NBA averaging 12 points and 10 rebounds per game during his rookie season.  But, Shaun Livingston, Robert Swift, and Sebastian Telfair were not.  Livingston has suffered through numerous knee injuries during his career and has never been able to get his career on track.  Swift has battled through injuries as well but even when healthy has only ever managed to average little more than 6 points per game.  Telfair, the much ballyhooed New York playground legend has never managed to average more than 10 points or 6 assists per game.

After that there was a string of successful picks with Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, and J. R. Smith who have gone on to have solid careers.  Jefferson has developed into a 20/10 player but it took three years until he was a starter in the NBA and four years until he was consistently scoring 20 points and pulling down 10 boards a game.  Josh Smith was able to contribute right away to the Hawks scoring 9.7 points and grabbing 6.2 rebounds per game.  J. R. Smith played a lot early in his career but he really did not find any consistency in his game or jumper until his third season in the league.  Of the top 13 scorers in that draft 9 of them went to college with Dwight Howard being the only player without college experience of the five from that draft who currently own scoring averages of better than 15 per game.

On the whole the number of players who are truly ready to play in the NBA straight out of high school are so few and far between and the only ones able to accomplish it are typically either players deemed worthy of being one of the top two or three picks like LeBron or Dwight Howard or they are big men like Amare Stoudamire who have the physique to stand up to the NBA game.  When one considers some of the poster children for NBA superstars who skipped college some of them were not ready to play in the NBA and likely would have benefited from a year or two of college ball to develop both mentally and physically.

It took Tracy McGrady three seasons until he was ready to play significant minutes and contribute.  Kobe Bryant played just 15 minutes a game his rookie season and did not win a starting gig until his third season in the league.  Jermaine O’Neal rotted away on Portland’s bench for four seasons before getting an opportunity to start for the Pacers.  However that is not to say that playing college ball necessarily translates to being a better pro but, typically speaking, those players that succeed immediately in the NBA played some college basketball before entering the league.  The numbers do not bear it out that these kids are able to play and contribute significant minutes at the NBA level.

The most compelling argument for abolishing the the age limit for the NBA comes at the college level.  Having the age limit means college coaches are now forced to recruit ‘one-and-done’ players to remain competitive.  Meaning they have to spend time, money, and resources on recruiting a player that is likely to stay for one year before bolting for the NBA.

Take O. J. Mayo for example.  He was a one-and-done guy who apparently solicited some cash from former USC head coach Tim Floyd.  I question whether Mayo was even showing up for classes or really doing any work and one can be rest assured that he stopped doing anything at all once the basketball season ended and he declared for the NBA draft.  Or, how about Derrick Rose who reportedly had a grade changed so he would be eligible to play when his transcripts were submitted only to have the grade changed back at a later date?  Memphis may now have to vacate its Final Four appearance for using an academically ineligible player.

Not only is it a scholarship management issue for coaches but now they are forced to basically baby sit kids who are likely not going to class or taking that year seriously potentially putting their programs at risk for punishment.  It seems to opening the door for more corruption behind the scenes to keep these kids eligible for a season because they really have nowhere else to go.  Should college coaches be forced to take on players like Mayo or Rose who clearly have no intentions of contributing anything more than being a star basketball player for those schools?

The question remains why can’t the NBA figure out how to manage this situation aside from throwing it back on the NCAA to do something about it?  The NFL gets away with the age limit because everyone knows NFL teams would not touch a kid coming out of high school.  The league recognizes the fact that there is such a vast difference in the speed in skill level that a player faces between high school and college and those kids need two or three years of college ball to adjust to playing with and against faster, bigger kids and comparable competition.  Think about how many kids we read about who score 100 touchdowns in high school only to flame out in college because they fail to adjust to the speed and level of competition at college.  NFL teams have no interest in high school kids and quite frankly probably do not relish spending the time and money scouting these kids.

Whatever the reason may be the NBA has convinced itself that it needs to scout and draft high school talent as opposed to watching college kids play ball.  They are worried about losing out on the next LeBron or KG and are willing to spend $10 million on a kid who may never average more than 8 or 9 points a game his first three years in the league.  The NBA merely pays lip service to the NBDL rather than trying to maintain it as a legitimate developmental league the way MLB teams subsidize minor league baseball.

I have always felt that Major League Baseball does the best at managing the issue of what to do with high school kids and I just cannot help but wonder why it is this cannot be instituted in basketball.  Let them all put their names in the draft if they don’t like where they end up they can still go to college with the caveat that they are ineligible to re-enter the draft until after their junior season at college or sophomore season if you like.  This is really the ultimate solution for the NBA and college basketball.  This way college coaches are assured of a commitment of more than a year from a kid and on the flipside of that it gives the kid a chance to develop his game and possibly earn some semblence of an education while he is at it.

The current way of doing things is not the optimal way and the notion that a baseball player can get drafted and still retain his scholarship if he does not like his draft status but a basketball player seems ludicrous to me.  I have never understood why it is the NCAA feels compelled to have so many different rules and standards for its student athletes depending on what sport they play.  It seems like it is about time for the NCAA to sit down with the professional sports leagues and evaluate its standards and draft up a policy that is equitable and fair to every student athlete and not just certain ones.

If I am the Maloof brothers why am I even entertaining the notion of hiring a guy who in six NBA seasons has a .466 winning percentage and exactly one winning season on two franchises with all of the resources in the world at his disposal?  Pitino could not make it work in stops at Boston and New York.  Though, to be fair, he did win 52 games his final season in New York before running back to the college game to take the Kentucky job.  After resuscitating the Kentucky program he then bolted to Boston to run the Celtics franchise.  He was abysmal there winning no more than 36 games in any one season.

Secondly is Pitino is making roughly $3 million per season at Louisville and Sacramento going to be willing to pony up comparable money for a coach who did not get the job done in Boston before scurrying back to the college game?

From Pitino’s perspective why is he even entertaining going back to the pros to work for a franchise that is in complete disarray right now and compiled the worst record in the league?  You took a shot at the pros coaching two of the most storied franchises in the league and you could not get done so get over it and move on.  Stay at Louisville where you are treated like royalty and have complete job security.  Why jump ship from what is a good thing in Louisville?  Are you in competition with Larry Brown to see how many teams you can head up before you die?