Lessons in Summer Hype: Olek Czyz
Posted by nvr1983 on December 18th, 2009One of the allures of the ridiculous summer camp/recruiting season is the promise of seeing a young player rise up the ranks (literally) going from a borderline D1 prospect to a major prospect drawing the attention of some of the nation’s top programs. Olek Czyz was one such case. A ridiculously athletic 6’7″ forward from Poland, Czyz was hardly a big-time prospect throughout most of his prep career. In fact, before the summer of 2007 Czyz was only drawing attention from Arizona State, Colorado State, Washington State, Santa Clara, and Pepperdine. Then with a sensational series of performances at the Las Vegas Easter Classic and Pangos All-America Camp, Czyz shot up the recruiting boards and drew interest from the likes of Duke, Louisville, Kentucky, and Florida. In fact, there were even stories of Czyz dominating DeMarcus Cousins during workouts drawing raves from Kentucky staff and fans. In the end, Czyz opted to go to Durham where he wowed fans in warm-ups, but never made a substantial contribution in any of their games finishing with a career high of 4 points against lowly Presbyterian in his first game of his career. Today, Czyz’s career at Duke officially came to an end as he announced that he would be transferring. While this raises the obvious question as to how Duke could be so wrong (hint: watch the YouTube clip below and try not fall for the athleticism), the bigger issue should be how this makes programs evaluate the recruit du jour when they hand out scholarship offers. Our guess is that it won’t have any effect in the long run, but it should make schools think twice before offering a full scholarship to a guy who manages to put together one or two great weeks when he hasn’t been able to perform at a similar level throughout the rest of his career. Czyz might eventually become a solid player, but it won’t be at the elite college level as other top programs will most likely be scared away by his inability to crack Duke’s “alarmingly unathletic” lineup.
This assumes Cycz has made a correct judgment on the guy. K’s player personnel decision making since the last championship has notably declined, so I don’t think that’s a given.
Here’s my take and advice for O Czyz:
Good Move! Get out of Duke and away from all those snotty liberal nitwits and their claptrap. Moreover, I think Coach K’s best days are past him. Plus you don’t need a damn point guard being the big’s coach, see Wojo.
Mostly, I wouldn’t want to play for a coach like K, someone who has taken on mythical status to the point of being in earnest melodramatic American Express commercials…believe me, its all about him and you are just a tiny cog (a backup cog at that) in the Big Machine that is Coach K. All his life lessons speachifying and life beyond basketball BS is just more of the polish on the facade that is an archetypal Big Time college basketball coach.
I would have been miserable their if I was you with K saying things like “Olek played very well tonight, he didn’t take an outside shot”. That’s like saying you played very well, you didn’t attempt to dribble or doing of that stuff we promised you we were bringing you here to develop so you could play at the next level (and you know they sold Olek on the “we see you as a 3” angle, but really they brought him in to be a backup 4, then they got the Plumlee twins and Kelly and about six other 4’s and 5’s…and you know Singler is going to play 39 minutes a game, so…Which, albeit I would love to see you here in Reno, isn’t Babbitt kind of like a Singler?
But I am pretty sure you would get a chance here. Not like at Duke were they put you in for 45 seconds at the end of a blowout then people on Duke’s message boards talk about how badly you blew your shot to impress and how lost you looked? Are you fíng kidding me? 45 seconds at the end of a blowout is your “shot” after the thousands and thousands of hours you have put into it? Plus, there is just this thing at Duke were everything is so subservient and miniscule compared to the basketball genuis that is Coach K…bs…you know what, coack K aint never got one rebound, aint never set a pick and K sure as hell never intimidated the other team into folding with a viscious dunk. Plus you can shoot the outside shot, I’ve seen you. You didn’t get to much in high school because that’s the high school way, put the big down low no matter if he is the second best shooter on the team. But you probably need to get used to the idea of playing the 4 or 5 in college then a sort of 3 in whatever pro rank you wind up playing in. Babbit’s basically played a lot of center at UNR, so, everybody (except maybe Singler, fair haired golden godboy) has to do it. whatever, at least your on the floor and good players should be good at all 5 positions to an extent. Ever heard of Taymon Domzalski from New mexico? A polish kid who went to duke McDonalds all-american, and never played more than about 8 mpg…and all these insipid duke basketball fans and all this overthinking of the damn game. they seriously acted like you were special ed or something their, its ridiculous, you are a very bright guy, came over hear and picked up english and navigated reno high…just go somewhere where they let you play, show off your athleticism and feel and flow the game rather than be a channel for the intellectual basketball genuis that is ratface coach k that huckster con man liberal elite basketball choice of distinction. its probably been tough but someday you’ll realize how many extremely tough lessons you have learned and you stop trusting glossy establishment people, look out for yourself, and negotiate better terms in your next deal.oh, okay, i see last game on Dec 15 beat Gardner Webb by the usual 57 points, O gets 2 minutes freshman R. Kelly gets 20…basically a slap in the face by K, probably needs to clear up a scholly. O, its not you, man. K knows Singler is staying four years and he needs more guards because E williams bolted. you have more upside than practically all the duke players so f em. Peace brotha.