According to various media reports on Tuesday, adidas is already stocking up to make a play on current Kansas star Andrew Wiggins, with the shoe giant ready to the throw a 10-year, $140 to $180 million contract at him when he goes pro after this season. Wiggins is widely touted as the top prospect in the 2014 NBA Draft, so let’s move past any issues or claims of amateurism and instead look at the how and why of this supposed deal. Looking at the immediate future, when Wiggins is selected in the first round of the draft next June, he will get the guaranteed four-year contract that comes with selection as a first round pick, per the NBA’s recent collective bargaining agreement. Breaking it down to a simple annual take of salary ($4 million-plus per year) plus endorsements, Wiggins will make a minimum of $18-$22 million per year beginning next summer, assuming of course that he lives up to the overflowing hype while passing through Lawrence.

Why Is This Man Smiling? Nine Figures Waiting For Him Helps

For comparison’s sake, let’s look at some of the more lucrative endorsement deals offered to young professional basketball prospects in the last decade. It’s tough to find a good benchmark, but you have to start with LeBron James’ deal with Nike in 2003, which was reportedly worth over $90 million at the time. In terms of one-year collegiate wonders, Kevin Durant signed a seven-year, $60 million deal with Nike when he came out of Texas, and lest we forget, Derrick Rose signed a monster “lifetime” (actual: 14-year) contract with adidas last year worth $260 million.

And yet, none of those deals are as important as the one that Wiggins could reportedly sign. There are certain number of factors that go into it. First, a company being publicly locked and loaded with such a deal (of course, neither adidas nor Wiggins can confirm it) could set off a behind-the-scenes bidding war and set the stage for preemptive moves like this in the future. Everyone around the game knows that the business of basketball begins when top players are still in the AAU ranks. With the shoe companies having such deep and prolific roots in the summer circuits and associations with the major prep schools, it’s easy to understand how and why many players are predestined for adidas, Nike, Reebok, and so forth from the beginning. Kansas is an adidas school. Wouldn’t it make sense for Wiggins to represent the shoe company on the court this season with such a tremendous payoff waiting for him in the wings? Shabazz Muhammad, UCLA, Dream Vision and adidas all say hello.

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1. Yesterday we mentioned that SI.com‘s Andy Glockner was brewing up a firestorm with his series of articles ranking the top 20 current programs in college basketball. Such an endeavor has two verifiable truths: first, everyone loves lists; second, everyone loves to rip lists. With that in mind (and he’s well aware of those truths), his honorable mentions came out Monday, followed by his rankings of programs from #16 to #20 on Tuesday. In order, let’s welcome Gonzaga, Illinois, Michigan, Georgetown and Texas to the top 20. Of this group, we’re having the most trouble with the Illinois pick at #19. The Illini had a renaissance season under the tutelage of new head coach John Groce last year, but spent most of the previous five years struggling to regain its national relevance of the early-to-mid 2000s. We realize of course that Glockner is using historical and other qualitative metrics to make these determinations, but we probably would have had Pittsburgh, Marquette, Xavier and several others ahead of the Illini. Still, that’s nitpicky. What will really make or break this list will be how Glockner handles the top five (and the fans of the four runners-up will let him know it!). We’re excited to see the next group released later today.
2. As more and more people marry themselves to the idea that college football and basketball players are being exploited by their schools and the NCAA, we’ll continue to see analyses like one from Business Insider published on Tuesday. Their methodology for determining the fair market value of players at the top 25 revenue-producing football schools is quite simple, probably overly simple — just multiply football revenue by 47 percent (per the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with its players), then divide by the number of scholarships (85). What BI found mimics the numbers we’ve seen elsewhere — at the richest athletic schools such as Texas, Alabama and Michigan, college football players are worth roughly a half-million dollars each annually in value. The same analysis is also easy enough to do for college basketball players. Louisville‘s hoops revenue of $42.4 million in 2012 is divided in half given the NBA’s rough 50/50 split with the players, leaving $21.2 million to be split 13 ways. The result: a Cardinals’ basketball player is worth $1.63 million to the university (if you buy into this methodology). This is the mistake that many of these gridiron-centric analyses don’t realize — while it’s definitely true that football provides more aggregate revenue to the schools, the players in college basketball are individually much more valuable. If you want to make the point most strongly, which is the better headline? Texas football players are worth a half-million each; or Louisville basketball players are worth three times that much?
3. While on the subject of football powers, the NCAA announced yesterday that Penn State would regain some of the football scholarships it lost as a result of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal. In announcing the removal of those sanctions, the NCAA recognized that the school had made great efforts to change its culture of abuse but NCAA president Mark Emmert made it clear that other schools shouldn’t expect a reduction in their own penalties. That’s too bad, writes The Dagger‘s Jeff Eisenberg, who outlines four major recent (and fixable) misfires by the NCAA, two of which were focused on men’s basketball. The most well-known example, of course, was the NCAA’s “strict liability” punishment on Memphis for playing Derrick Rose in the 2007-08 season, even though the NCAA Clearinghouse had deemed him eligible to play before that season. The other is far less recognizable, involving the NCAA’s decision to rule that Old Dominion’s Donte Hill was ineligible for his senior season because he played eight minutes in a closed-door preseason scrimmage against Clemson back in 2010. We’re quite sure that we could probably come up with a dozen more of these if we spent the time on it, but Eisenberg’s list is a good place to start. It wouldn’t hurt the NCAA to consider more reductions (or commutation) of sentences based on additional facts, precedents and behaviors.
4. What’s a Final Four appearance worth to an MVC school like Wichita State? We’ll have to wait for the Business Insider analysis on that one, but it’s at least worth around $600,000 to its head coach, Gregg Marshall. The university announced his new salary on Tuesday, with a base of $1.6 million that kicks in this November and another raise to $1.75 million that begins next April. The long-underrated head coach will move into the top 25 or so highest-paid college basketball coaches as a result of this raise, which is a substantial financial commitment for a school living outside the Power Six or Seven hoops leagues. But Final Four appearances at schools like Wichita State tend to result in ironclad job security.
5. Believe it or not, but with the new practice rules in effect this season, schools will actually begin suiting up for real, live, full-on practices this Friday. As in 48 hours from now. One of the players who will definitely be there to play post-practice games of HORSE with his teammates is Ole Miss’ Marshall Henderson. As reported by Gary Parrish at CBSSports.com, Andy Kennedy expects the all-SEC shooting guard to be on the floor Friday. The controversial shooting guard reportedly failed multiple drug tests and spent much of the offseason “suspended” from the team, whatever that means, but let’s be honest with ourselves here. There aren’t all that many name-brand players who pass through Oxford, Mississippi — especially in roundball — so there was not much of a question as to whether Henderson would suit up this year.

1. CSNChicago.com: Duke commitment Jabari Parker reached out to a couple of pros for advice on his budding career. On recruiting, he talked to fellow Chicago Simeon HS graduate Derrick Rose, who pointed Parker toward the coach who would most push him instead of coddling him. For injury advice, he sought out Duke alumnus Grant Hill, who stressed the importance of patience. Their advice certainly isn’t mind-blowing, but it’s cool to see someone use those connections to make these kinds of life decisions. It also probably didn’t hurt Duke to have a guy like Hill indirectly (and unofficially of course) representing the school.
2. Run The Floor: In case Ken Pomeroy’s numbers didn’t give you a full clue into how much better Duke has been than the rest of the ACC, Michael Rogner made up an ACC “Power Rankings” based on efficiency margins. Visually, it’s stunning just how much more impressive Duke has been in the early goings and explains why Pomeroy’s simulations have Duke winning nearly 90% of the time. Duke has the best offense and the best defense in the league by fairly significant margins. And the other schools with an elite offense (really only NC State) or defense (Georgia Tech and Virginia) are very one-dimensional.
3. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Speaking of the Yellow Jackets, Georgia Tech is off to an impressive 10-2 start this season. But while their record should come with a grain of salt, it’s not like Brian Gregory played a schedule of world-beaters in non-conference play last season when his team started 7-7. Georgia Tech’s improvement is mostly on the defensive end, where they’re shutting opponents down and doing a solid job covering the defensive glass. Last year the Yellow Jackets needed a miracle game out of Glen Rice, Jr., to have a chance. This year they might be able to surprise a few teams along the way.
4. CBSSports.com: Florida State‘s recent “disappoint in the non-conference but force the Selection Committee’s hand with a couple of great conference wins” MO may fall somewhat short this season. In large part, the Seminoles can blame the second item on this list, as there just aren’t that many great wins within the ACC to get this season. Sure, beating Duke in Tallahassee would go a long way, but apart from their one shot at the Blue Devils the Seminoles don’t have any real margin for error. The team just hasn’t gelled defensively, and it shows.
5. Washington Post: Jontel Evans is out of his boot and may return against North Carolina on Sunday. Assuming Evans fits back into the team seamlessly (and there’s no reason to assume he won’t), Virginia may very well be the second best team in the ACC. Their loss to Old Dominion notwithstanding, the Cavaliers play very tough defense that will only get better when Evans returns to the lineup. Don’t expect too many minutes against the Tar Heels though, as the Cavaliers don’t want to re-aggravate Evans’ foot injury.

EXTRA: Former North Carolina governor Jim Martin wrote a letter to the editor of the Raleigh News & Observer to comment on the criticisms of his recent report about the UNC academic scandal. Long story short, he did everything that was in his power to illuminate the scandal and reported his findings. Unfortunately, without subpoena power at his disposal, though, he couldn’t force anyone to cooperate on the record, a major limitation.

1. It seems like all we talk about in these M5s are player eligibility issues, but something new is released almost every day. The latest release involves the other half of the top two players in the incoming freshman class (depending on whom you ask). With UCLA”s Shabazz Muhammad sitting in Westwood yesterday as his team flew off to China without him, SI.com‘s Pete Thamel published a piece revealing that the NCAA is taking a closer look at the recruitment of Kentucky big man Nerlens Noel, visiting his former high school for the second time in three months to inquire about some of the associations he has with various prep basketball hangers-on, and specifically, how Noel paid for some of his unofficial recruiting visits. As expected, Kentucky fans have been quick to play the victimization card by their media public enemy #1, Thamel, but the truth of the matter is that this is becoming NCAA standard operating procedure for elite recruits in today’s environment. Just this offseason, Noel, Muhammad, Providence’s Ricardo Ledo and NC State’s Rodney Purvis have been more carefully vetted by the NCAA, and in the era of players frequently jumping high schools, more and more powerful AAU basketball, and vast coteries of agents and runners looking for a piece of the action, these careful evaluations of elite recruits is going to continue.
2. It was therefore superb timing on CBSSports.com to release another of their Critical Coaches series Wednesday asking a question along these lines. They asked their coaching contacts which player’s recruitment from the last decade was perceived (there’s that word again) to have been the dirtiest? Recall that a couple of weeks ago, John Calipari, Scott Drew and Ben Howland were perceived to be the biggest cheaters in the sport — among the group of players named in this follow-up question, the top four named and six of the top 10 were recruits under either Calipari or Howland. Interestingly, none of Drew’s guys — from Quincy Miller to Isaiah Austin to Perry Jones — were named in this poll. But boy, both Calipari and Howland’s guys sure were — the top four: Shabazz Muhammad, Anthony Davis, John Wall, and Kyle Anderson. The next two on the list? OJ Mayo and Derrick Rose — two players who, you know, were proven to have committed serious violations during their recruitments. A number of other players received votes but it’s clear that, with nine of the 24 players named (Terrence Jones, DeMarcus Cousins, Enes Kanter, and J’Mison Morgan were also named), the Kentucky and UCLA head coaches are perceived to be playing a different game than everyone else.
3. Sigh… While on the subject of the shamelessness of some of the questions in this Critical Coaches series, would it be too much to ask the CBSSports.com gentlemen — all of whom are good and capable dudes — to follow up with some of the hundreds of coaching contacts they have and do the proper journalistic legwork to prove (or disprove) these perceptions? If Shabazz Muhammad’s recruitment is perceived to be the dirtiest in the last 10 years of college basketball (or Anthony Davis’… or John Wall’s… or Kyle Anderson’s… you get the point), how about spending some of that energy nailing the people responsible; or, alternatively, clearing those mentioned from that perception? It all just feels a bit too US Weekly, which as John Clay suggests, is fine if that’s what the site wants to be — but unlike most college basketball portals, that group has the resources, the time, and quite clearly the contacts to find out where the bodies are buried. Instead of pure sensationalism, how about digging up a few bones here and there along the way?
4. Let’s continue a theme with today’s M5 by mentioning that UNC has “quietly” moved its director of academic support services for athletes into another position at the university. Specifically, Robert Mercer, the department’s leader for 10 years, has become a “special assistant for operations” at the school’s Johnston Center for Academic Excellence (where everyone who wants an A, gets an A!). Sorry. UNC of course went to great pains to lay blame at the feet of Mercer for the problems that occurred under his watch, but it’s clear to anyone watching that he’s falling on the sword in return for an opportunity to keep his job (current salary: $81,900 + bennies). One note on this story — outside of Tobacco Road, it’s not well-known just how much vitriol exists between NC State and North Carolina. Take a read at some of the 15 pages of user comments under this Raleigh News & Observer article, and you’ll understand very quickly that the hatred between those two fan bases runs very, very deep.
5. Back to basketball. One of the best ongoing columns if you’re looking for insightful information about the sport is Mike DeCourcy‘s Starting Five piece. If you can get past DeCourcy’s floating head at the top of each article, it’s really an excellent read, and this week was no different. He doesn’t get cute with it, but the insight is that the questions he answers are often a step or two beyond the typical “how do you see XYZ next year?” type. In this installment, he discusses the paucity of elite point guards in college basketball, Keith Clanton’s loyalty to UCF, and the possible upside for a number of non-power conference teams, among other things. There are few regular offseason columns that we’d describe as must-reads, but DeCourcy’s Q&A is definitely worth a few of your minutes each week.

1. If Illinois is to succeed in the Big Ten — whether it’s under Bruce Weber or a different head coach — the Fighting Illini likely need to succeed in recruiting top players out of Chicago. It’s a hotbed of talent — guys like Anthony Davis and Derrick Rose come to mind, with players like Jabari Parker and Cliff Alexander set to come out of the Windy City in the next few years — and right in Illinois’ backyard. But the relationship between the school and the city can be a complicated one, Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette. If Weber or the next coach can figure it out, it could mean a huge leap forward for the program.
2. Is Iowa‘s Matt Gatens the most underrated player in the Big Ten? The senior has been sturdy for the Hawkeyes, scoring a team-high 14.88 PPG and dropping at least 15 in his last six games. Gatens played all 40 minutes in Iowa’s upset of Indiana, scoring 30 points on 10-for-18 shooting. “He was just in a great flow and rhythm,” Indiana coach Tom Crean said. “He’s not only one of the better shooters or guards in this league. He’s also one of the better ones in the country. That is a four-year guy who has been doing it at a high level — a great guy to have walk into your program.” And the fact that he’s one of three Hawkeyes with fathers that have ties to the program makes it an even better story.
3. Speaking of Gatens, his performance against the Hoosiers was one thing that stood out to the Indianapolis Star‘s Terry Hutchens in the game. It was yet another disappointing road performance for the baffling Hoosiers, who often seem unbeatable in Bloomington, but mediocre away from home. Among Hutchens’ other notes are Iowa coach Fran McCaffery‘s thoughts on Cody Zeller, the disappearing act of Christian Watford and Jordan Hulls‘ search for confidence.
4. Nebraska hasn’t finished its first season in the Big Ten, but the Omaha World-Herald‘s Tom Shatel already believes the Cornhuskers are in need of change in the program. He says this difficult task must start with the man who has already worked wonders in the athletic program: Tom Osborne. The former football coach has the opportunity to make Nebraska a winning program, Shatel says, by bringing in a coach who can recruit at a high level and showing that the department is committed to the basketball program like it is to the football team. Could a change be coming?
5. Without question, Purdue could have used the services of D.J. Byrd and Kelsey Barlow on Sunday against Michigan State, but head coach Matt Painter knew he had a tough decision to make. Byrd will rejoin the team, but Barlow is out of second chances. “It’s disappointing,” Painter said. “There’s no doubt about it. It’s disappointing because when you put in time with guys and you give guys a second chance, that’s what it’s all about. You think about the chances you get in life. You think about somebody sticking by you.”

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Josh Paunil, the RTC recruiting guru. We encourage you to check out his website dedicated solely to college basketball recruiting, National Recruiting Spotlight, for more detailed recruiting information. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to who the hot prospects are at the lower levels of the sport. If you have any suggestions as to areas we’re missing or different things you’d like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Lead Story: Elite Class of 2013 Shooting Guard Selects Kansas

Bill Self Must Have Dazzled Brannen Greene On the Junior's Unofficial Visit (Jeffrey Greene)

Brannen Greene Not Satisfied, Recruiting Others To Join Him. Class of 2013 shooting guard Brannen Greene announced his commitment to the Kansas Jayhawks this week which makes him the third highest rated recruit to come off the board. The 6’6″, 180-pound Georgia-native joins shooting guard Conner Frankamp as head coach Bill Self‘s two commitments in the junior class and will see playing time at both guard positions and small forward. Greene is a guy who has good athleticism and versatility and shoots the ball very well from the perimeter. He’s also a very intelligent player who has great character and is supremely coachable. The good news for Kansas fans is that he has already started recruiting guys to come join him. A trio of top-10 juniors is currently at the top of his wish list which includes shooting guard Allerik Freeman and power forwards Chris Walker and Julius Randle. The Jayhawks are also very close to getting a commitment from Class of 2013 point guard Isaiah Lewis who could verbal Monday (see more below). In addition to Lewis, Kansas looks to be in the lead to land Walker’s services and could get Freeman as well. Perhaps the only recruiting trouble Bill Self could run into in the Class of 2013 is if he will have enough scholarships available.

What They’re Saying

• Senior Shabazz Muhammad on who’s standing out to him: “UNLV stands out, Kentucky, Duke and UCLA, all really stand out to me from a player’s standpoint. Kansas also really has a great program too, and I’m excited to take my official [visit] up there and see [head] coach [Bill] Self and his staff.”

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1. It’s finally here. It has been a little more than 7 months since Connecticut defeated Butler to give Jim Calhoun his third national championship. In the interim, we have been forced to talk about the NBA Draft, a ridiculous amount of conference realignment, an even more ridiculous amount of NCAA violations, and some recent exhibition games (we will get to the latter three in a bit). Tonight, the actual games start with three games on the docket: William & Mary at St. John’s (the first game of the season and also the first RTC Live of the year), Eastern Kentucky at Mississippi State, and Valparaiso at Arizona. We are hoping with the season starting we can get back to focusing on the sport we all love. Just remember your team is still undefeated right now.
2. Connecticut freshman Ryan Boatright continues to be in limbo with the NCAA during its ongoing investigation into his eligibility regarding a plane ticket purchased for him by Reggie Rose, his AAU coach who happens to be Derrick Rose‘s brother. According to a NCAA source, Boatright could miss between three and six games depending on the value of the ticket. [Ed. Note: How do they figure this out? Use the highest possible price like it was purchased day of or do they see what you could get on Priceline?] For his part, Reggie Rose is declining comment “out of the respect to the Boatright family” while a source close to him calls the entire thing a “witch hunt”. While the Huskies will miss Boatright in November because of their lack of depth at point guard given the relatively short length of the potential punishment we doubt that this will affect UConn in the long run unless the NCAA drags its feet in announcing the punishment because Boatright will have to sit out during that period too.
3. We have known it was coming for weeks, but on Sunday the SEC made it official–Missouri will join the SEC for the 2012-13 season. We have already discussed in depth the impact this and other moves will have on the landscape of college sports so we will spare you all the details and moralizing. For the SEC fans who may not be familiar with Missouri and its sports teams, Alabama Live has provided a nice primer on the school and its athletic department. Our personal favorite part is the ranking schools by number of major NCAA infractions.
4. Bob Huggins would probably like to forget West Virginia‘s last second 77-74 loss to Division II Northern Kentucky on Saturday night when Eshaunte Jones hit a three with one second left. As we have said before these games aren’t particularly helpful although some people will make a big deal out of Northern Kentucky winning its first exhibition game against a Division I opponent in 19 tries. The reality is that the Norse shot lights out going 13 of 25 from beyond the arc and shooting 54% from the field overall while the Mountaineers came out flat falling behind 42-29 at half after trailing by as many as 17 points in the first half. After the game Truck Bryant, who led the Mountaineers with 24 points, said, “I didn’t see this coming. I mean losing to a D-II school, not to take anything away from them, that’s embarrassing.” We are assuming that Huggins and Bryant will use this as motivation for the regular season opener against Oral Roberts on Friday night.
5. Chuck Klosterman put out a list of his 50 favorite college basketball players of all-time and it created a brief controversy on Twitter on Friday afternoon as people harangued him for his selections. As we mentioned at the time the list should not be taken as a top 50 list despite its title. Klosterman lays out his criteria at the top, which is fine since it is his list, but makes some questionable interpretations of those criteria when ranking players. Overall, we sort of like his list with its mixture of players that everybody remembers as being great along with a few that only serious basketball fans would know unless they had some special connection (fans of that school, etc) and have already admitted that it is much better than what we could probably do off the top of our head for indie rock bands, Klosterman’s area of expertise.

1. With the start of the college basketball season rapidly approaching one of the hot topics has been the upcoming Carrier Classic, which nearly every fan of college basketball would love to go to. Apparently, Michael Jordan is not among them as the UNC great has decided to back out of his position as honorary captain for the Tar Heels due to a prior commitment. He will be replaced by his former Tar Heel teammate James Worthy, who will be met on the opposing side by his former Los Angeles Laker teammate Magic Johnson, who will be serving as honorary captain of Michigan State. We are sure that Jordan has a valid excuse, but given his prior history of missing major ceremonies, we are surprised that someone hasn’t come out with some ridiculous conspiracy theory on what Jordan is doing instead.
2. Suspended Florida forward Cody Larson got a bit of good news on Friday when a South Dakota court ruled that he will not have to serve jail time for the misdemeanor charges related to his arrest in April. Larson could have served jail time for violating probation from a prior arrest in high school where he was charged with illegal use and possession of Hydrocodone. Instead, the court ruled that Larson will have another 120-day suspended jail sentence, serve another 2 years of probation, and complete a community service requirement (tell local high school basketball teams about his experiences). So if you are scoring at home he violated his probation and was given the same sentence with the only addition being talking to local basketball teams. Let’s hear it for the American legal system…
3. Speaking of the American legal system, a group of Memphis season ticket holders received a $100,000 out-of-court settlement from Derrick Rose, John Calipari, and the current athletic director after threatening the trio with a lawsuit for making their 2009-2010 season tickets worth less than they otherwise would have been. The claims are based on the assertion that the ruling against the program stemming from Rose’s reportedly invalid SAT score devalued the Memphis season tickets. The entire lawsuit seems ridiculous (our legal expert may chime in later), but I guess when you make the kind of money that Rose and Calipari make it might be worth it to pay the money to get the season ticket holders to stop bothering them.
4. The ACC’s currently announced expansion plans have widely been portrayed as a move that was made to bolster the conference’s basketball, but Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo insists that isn’t the case and that football money was the driving force. While that is the lede the more interesting part of this article is that DeFilippo claims that BC blocked Connecticut‘s inclusion (free registration) and cites comments made in 2005 as part of the reasoning. This seems ridiculous particularly since the lawsuit brought in 2005 attempting to block BC from leaving the Big East to join the ACC was brought by UConn and Pittsburgh, whom BC apparently had no problem letting in the ACC. Basically what it appears to come down to is that BC felt more threatened by UConn encroaching on its Northeastern territory than they did with either Pittsburgh or Syracuse. If this is true, we are kind of surprised that BC has that much sway in the ACC.
5. While the ACC and nearly every other conference appears to be fixated on conference expansion, the Big Ten is not one of those conferences. At least that is what current commissioner Jim Delany said on Friday. We are usually skeptical of these type of claims, but to their credit we are not aware of any rumors of the Big Ten going after any team and we have actually heard that they have turned down a few potentially interested schools. As we have said before we are getting to the point of exhaustion with these expansion rumors, but now that we are getting to the point where a conference announcing that it is not looking to expand becomes news we are hoping that we are nearing the conclusion although we doubt it.

Over the course of the next month until the NBA Draft on June 23, RTC will be rolling out comprehensive profiles of the 35 collegians we feel have the best chance to hear their names called by David Stern in the first round that night. There won’t be any particular order to the list, but you can scroll back through all the finished profiles by clicking here.

Player Name: Kyrie Irving

School: Duke

Height/Weight: 6’3/190 lbs.

NBA Position: Point Guard

Projected Draft Range: #1 Overall

Overview: Irving opened his career at Duke playing about as well as anybody could have expected a freshman point guard to play so early in his career even considering the ideal situation he joined (playing on a defending national champion with two of its top players — Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith — returning). Irving was playing so well that by the time Duke’s national championship game rematch against Butler rolled around on December 4 he had established himself as the top player on a loaded team and the runaway choice as national player of the year. Then Irving injured his toe and appeared lost for the season but made a return in the NCAA Tournament where he was solid, but clearly not playing like he had before the injury (excepting one half against Arizona in the Sweet Sixteen). Despite his abbreviated season, Irving showed more than enough to NBA scouts and executives to make him the clear-cut #1 choice to the Cleveland Cavaliers in this year’s NBA Draft. Although his lack of world-class athleticism makes many observers question whether he will ever become a true star in the NBA, there is little doubt he will be a solid player based on his already well-developed all-court game as he appears to have no real weakness in terms of his skill set.

Irving is the clear #1 pick in this year's NBA Draft

Will Translate to the NBA: A point guard that everybody on his team will love playing with. One of the most interesting aspects of Irving’s single season at Duke was not his impressive early-season performances, but instead it was his ability to take command of a senior-laden team without any evidence of a fracture in team chemistry. The freshman guard will be a good starting point guard in the NBA for years and his ability to hit from outside and penetrate will make him a coach’s dream. The big question with Irving from an NBA standpoint is what his ceiling is. Ten years ago this probably would not have been an issue, but with the recent point guard renaissance and the appearance of ridiculously athletic point guards like Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook in the NBA, it becomes a significant issue for a #1 overall pick. Kyrie will probably never contend for an MVP award and might not even make many All-Star teams, but he is one of the most complete point guards you will find coming out of college and maybe the most complete freshman point guard in years.

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1. Yesterday was a busy day for former UConn forward Jamal Coombs-McDaniel as he not only received a deal from a judge allowing him to enter a state-run drug education program that would leave him without a criminal record (outside of the Internet) and he announced that he would be transferring to Hofstra where he will join former UConn assistant Patrick Sellars (the one who was thrown under the bus in the Nate Miles fiasco).
2. We are only week away from the NBA Draft and most pundits expect the Cleveland Cavaliers to select Kyrie Irving with the #1 overall pick. Even though most people consider this a weak year overall there are a few people who are quite high on Irving. Basketball Prospectus is apparently high enough on him to write an a post comparing him to Derrick Rose. We don’t think that Irving is even close to the prospect that Rose was coming out of his freshman year (the comparison is probably based on most similar game rather than potential), but it is an interesting analysis.
3. Over the years Dick Vitale has become somewhat of a lightning rod for fans upset about perceived biases against their teams so much so that they often forget that he was a pretty good college coach (and a lousy pro coach). Detroit, the school that he coached at from 1973-77 and led to the NCAA Tournament in 1977, has announced that it will be naming its court as “Dick Vitale Court at Calihan Hall” during the school’s nationally televised game against St. John’s on December 5, 2011 (more on it here from RTC). We are sort of on the fence with this one. On one hand the program does not have a great track record of success and Vitale got them to the NCAA Tournament, but on the other hand it could be interpreted to be a desperate plea to garner some national attention.
4. We have been writing about “package deals” for several years now dating back to the sketchy Michael Beasley–Dalonte Hill deal, but assumed that they were going to be less frequent with the NCAA trying to be more vigilant on all fronts. It turns that belief might have been a bit premature as some are questioning a potential assistant coaching job offer to the father of 2012 recruit J-Mychal Reese. According to some reports J-Mychal’s father has offers from Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and LSU. Although he does have nearly a decade of experience as a high school coach some are questioning it and it should be worth following over the next year.
5. UTEP rising sophomore John Bohannon got himself into a mess over the weekend with an anti-gay tweet stating “#letsbereal it is NOT cool to be gay! (Zro voice) *jordan shrug*.” Bohannon subsequently deleted the tweet and posted another tweet stating “To those who were offended by my tweet a few days ago- Didn’t mean any disrespect by it as I do not judge anybody by their sexual preference and would hope you would not judge me by one tweet. Thank You.” UTEP has not issued a comment other than that Bohannon reportedly issued the original tweet in reference to a lyric by rapper Z-Ro that stated “Seems like today, it’s cool to be gay.” Within the UTEP student community response has been mixed, but mostly negative, which is not too surprising. We are sure that Bohannon will be reminded of this at a more than a few road games during his college career.