So now it’s Seth Greenberg.
A year ago at this time, it was Adrian Wojnarowski promoting the theme that coaching Team USA in international competition gives Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski a huge recruiting advantage.
Now, Greenberg – who ended his coaching career by being unable to escape mediocrity at Virginia Tech (one NCAA bid in nine seasons) – is repeating the same garbage, arguing that K’s power experience gives him a major recruiting advantage and “people would be happy if he just admitted it.”
Sigh … I wish Greenberg had read my response to Wojnarowski last August. If he had, maybe he could have offered a counterargument based on the historical recruiting evidence.
The fact is that Krzyzewski’s recruiting did NOT benefit from his ascension to the head coaching job with USA basketball and that’s not very hard to prove.
I ask you to track Krzyzewski’s recruiting efforts before and after he was named as the head coach of the US National Team in October of 2005.
At that point in his career, Krzyzewski had three national championships and was coming off his 10th Final Four appearance in 2004. He had already been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame and was easily the most celebrated college coach in the country. He had turned down chances to coach the Boston Celtics (in 1989), the Miami Heat and the Portland Trail Blazers (in 1994) and the LA Lakers (2004).
The idea that he needed USA Basketball to promote himself is ludicrous.
But what about the help it has given him in recruiting?
Again, go back to 2005.
In the nine years leading up to 2005, Krzyzewski landed the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class four times – 1997 (Brand, Battier), 1999 (Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy), 2002 (J.J. Redick, Shelden Williams) and 2005 (Josh McRoberts, Greg Paulus). Actually, it was the fifth time overall in his career – his 1982 recruiting class was also ranked No. 1.So how much of a boost did his recruiting get from his appointment?
-- In 2006, he landed the national’s third-ranked class. It included one top 10 prospect (No. 10 Gerald Henderson) and two more top 25 guys (No. 20 Lance Thomas and No. 25 Brian Zoubek)-- In 2007, he landed the No. 3 class again. It included one top 10 prospect (No. 5 Kyle Singler) and two more top 25 guys (No. 19 Nolan Smith and No. 24 Taylor King)
-- In 2008, he landed the 11th ranked class. It included one top 50 player (No. 15 Elliot Williams)
-- In 2009, he landed the No. 8 ranked class. No top 10 prospects, but two top 25 (No. 14 Ryan Kelly and No. 18 Mason Plumlee).
-- In 2010, he landed the No. 9 ranked class. It included No. 2 Kyrie Irving, but he was the only top 25 prospect.
-- In 2011, he landed the No. 2 ranked class. It included No. 2 Austin Rivers, but no other top 25 prospect.
-- In 2012, he landed a class that tied for No. 10. It included two top 25 players (No. 12 Rasheed Sulaimon and No. 21 Amile Jefferson)
-- In 2013, he landed the No. 4 class. In included one top 25 payer – No. 3 Jabari Parker.
Examine the first eight recruiting classes AFTER Coach K took over Team USA. Those are certainly good classes – BUT THEY ARE NOT AS GOOD AS THE CLASSES IMMEDIATELY BEFORE HIS APPOINTMENT.
In the eight years before Oct. 2005, K landed the No. 1 class 3 times (that doesn’t count 1998, when he also had the No. 1 class). In the eight years after Oct. 2005, he didn’t land the No. 1 class once. In the eight years before his appointment, K landed seven top 10 and 16 top 25 prospects.
In the eight years after his appointment, K landed four top 10 prospects and 14 top 25 prospects.So very clearly that Coach K recruited better in the eight years before his appointment than in the eight years afterwards.
Where were all the benefits of his Team USA experience? Remember, this was a period when he led the United States to Olympic Gold Medals in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, plus a World Championship in 2010.
If coaching Team USA was such an advantage, shouldn’t his recruiting have picked up in that period … instead of falling off?Things changed in 2014.
That year, Coach K did bring in the nation’s top-ranked class – No. 1 Jahlil Okafor, No. 7 Tyus Jones, No. 13 Justise Winslow and No. 24 Grayson Allen.
A year later, Coach K brought in another class that was either rated No. 1 or No. 2 (Kentucky fans also claim the recruiting title that year) – No. 4 Brandon Ingram, No. 13 Derryck Thornton, No. 14 Chase Jeter and No. 21 Luke Kennard.
And again in 2016, he landed a class that is generally rated No. 1 or 2 – No. 2 Harry Giles, No. 3 Jayson Tatum, No. 11 Marques Bolden, No. 14 Frank Jackson and No. 35 Javin DeLaurier.
Now that is eye-popping recruiting – three straight top 2 classes; five top 10 prospects; 12 top 25 prospects. You could argue that K has landed more top prospects in the last three years than he did in his first eight years as the national coach.So the question is, can we ascribe his recent recruiting success to his experience with Team USA?
To make that argument, you have to explain what changed in 2014.
What was different from 2009, the year after he won Olympic Gold in Bejing or 2013, the year after he won gold in London? It’s not like LeBron and Kobe and Carmello started praising him in 2014 – they had been singing his praises since 2008.I’ve argued before and I’ll continue to argue that what changed was Coach K’s response to the one-and-done era.
For most of his career, K was the cover boy for the four-year college player. Before 1999, he never lost a player early to the NBA draft. He did lose a few year in the span between 1999 and 2011 (including two one-and-dones), but on the whole Duke kids in that decade stayed longer than their contemporaries. Shane Battier, Chris Duhon, J.J. Redick, Shelden Williams, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith were all four-year guys who passed up the chance to leave early.
Coach K was perceived much like Roy Williams is perceived today – as a coach who encourages his kids to stay longer than necessary.
That changed in 2011 with Kyrie Irving. Despite a toe injury that cost the brilliant point guard most of his freshman season, Coach K helped – and even pushed him – to go one and done. A year later, he did the same with Austin Rivers.
Suddenly, Krzyzewski was perceived as establishing Duke as a program that welcomed, encouraged and helped one-and-done players. That perception was solidified by Jabari Parker, a played known to be a one-and-done from the moment he stepped on Duke’s campus.Suddenly – because of his late embrace of the one-and-done payer, Krzyzewski was recruiting at the level he had achieved before his appointment as Team USA coach. Not coincidentally, that was also an era before the one-and-done stampede.
I believe THAT is the reason that K is recruiting now at such a high level – not his tenure as coach of USA Basketball.Certainly his reputation and his stature as the nation’s best college basketball coach helps him in that regard. But he had that stature BEFORE he was appointed the head coach of Team USA … indeed, it’s the reason he was appointed to the position.
To be fair, K’s stature has grown, due to his experience with Team USA and his impact on some of the best basketball players in the world.Is that a bad thing?
“Somebody who writes a great book or wins a championship, they have an advantage,” Krzyzewski said last year. “But its advantage through accomplishment. The notoriety you get from that, there’s a risk from that – you could lose. The fact that you win … if you gain an advantage with that, so be it.”
The haters are going to hate – whether Wojnarowski, Greenberg, Stephen Smith, John Calipari or Art Chansky ( it must kill him that Dean’s protégés George Karl and Larry Brown were such failures with Team USA).
It’s understandable that they are jealous (or, in the case of Calipari mouthpiece Wojnaroweski, speaking for those who are jealous). That jealousy is understandable.
But, Seth, people would be happy if you and your compatriots would just admit it.