Sam Smith Speculates On Parker's Future

It's kind of ridiculous, but in college ball today, if you're good, the discussion is less on how good you are and what your weaknesses are than where you'll fit in the draft - and whether you'll come out or not.

So there was a mini-boomlet Monday, which seems to have started with Sam Smith of Bulls.com, a guy who has gone down a few rabbit holes in his time. But you know how it works. A guy like that starts something and it gets picked up.

Next thing you know, Dan Feldman of NBCSports picks it up, and then Adam Zagoria gets Sonny Parker to comment.

Jabari's dad told Zagoria that "No [Smith] hasn’t spoken to Jabari. His interviews, Coach K handles all that. I doubt if Jabari talked to Sam Smith, personally. We know our son and right now like I told everybody, including Coach K, we’ll talk about it after the season. Right now we don’t want no distractions...Only one person knows if he’s staying or not staying and that’s him. He will talk about it after the season. He’s gotta enjoy college right now. Anybody else is projecting and saying he’s coming out, me and my wife and my son we haven’t talked to him about it."

Not that we have a clue either, but we can say this: we won't be surprised either way.

Parker's values are a bit different than a lot of other kids. If you remember, he chose Duke not because it was his best visit - it wasn't, he said it wasn't actually that great - but because when he balanced everything, Duke was the best choice for his future.

This is also a kid who had to make a personal decision about whether or not to go on a Mormon mission. Correct us if we're wrong, but we don't think he's absolutely ruled that out either.

We don't pretend to have unusual insights into Jabari Parker's value system, but we don't think it's entirely based around the draft.

If he decides to become independently wealthy next spring, then we'll be very happy for him. If he decides his spiritual commitments are paramount, well, that's an amazing choice also. And if he decides to return to Duke for at least another year, you know, it's not what every kid in his position would do, but we'll be thrilled if he does.

In the meantime, maybe we could do as his dad suggests and just live in the present, which is pretty damn good.