Kyrie Irving’s Decision: Either Way a Good Choice

Time to play “pretend”. 

Pretend you’re a 19 year old kid and you have a choice to make.  On one hand you can accomplish your dream of playing in the NBA and get selected in the draft, at worst being a 3^rd pick.  With this choice you are guaranteed to be making multi millions per year for 3 years.  Combine your talent and a little luck with injuries (or lack there of) you have 15-18 more years of playing basketball making millions every year doing what you love. 

Your other choice is to go back to a dream that you have already accomplished in playing at Duke University.  It just so happens that your best friend is enrolling next season (Austin Rivers) and you two would combine to be the best backcourt in the nation from day one of the season.  Duke, with you back, instantly becomes the favorite to win it all.  Play your normal game and at the end of your sophomore year you will again have the opportunity to be a top 5 draft pick.  The millions still waiting, only this time with no fear of a NBA lockout hanging over the draft like there will be this year. 

What would you do?

This is the choice that Kyrie Irving has to make in the next week or two.  Kyrie is coming off of a very interesting year, that hasn’t included much of him playing.  He only played in 11 games this year due to his toe injury suffered in early December.  When the NCAA started it was rumored he would be back for the opening game, and that rumor became fact.  After months of rehab Kyrie put the rumors to bed and took the court against Hampton.  In 3 tournament games Kyrie led Duke in scoring in 2.  Unfortunately though the season ended in the 3^rd game against a red hot Arizona team, in Kyrie’s final game of the season he had 28 points.  His impressive play coming off the injury has NBA teams foaming at the mouth again at the opportunity to draft him.

Reasons To Go -

It seems that the decision to go pro is more likely to be Kyrie Irving’s choice this spring.  In most mock drafts, Irving is listed as the top pick.  It is very tough to pass on the NBA when you're projected to be a 1^st round pick, so to be projected as the #1 overall pick makes it even tougher. 

It is obvious that Irving has the talent and mental grasp of the game of basketball to make it in the pros.  Will he be a superstar?  That is never guaranteed, but with Kyrie’s basketball awareness and physical talents he is pretty much a sure thing to be a quality NBA contributor for years to come.  NBA teams love guys with big upside, guys who are just raw talent.  The issue is those type of players are a big boom or bust potential.  Then there comes along a player like Kyrie, who has boom potential but almost zero bust potential.

Kyrie has already dodged a serious injury affecting his draft prospects.  If he comes back to Duke and gets injured again, it will definitely get him the label of being injury prone.  It’s rare a player can only play 11 games in a season due to injury and still be a projected as a top pick.  Almost any other player in college basketball would be guaranteed to come back to college for another year in order to prove themselves to the pro scouts on the court.  Kyrie Irving is different; in his 11 games he showed the scouts all they needed to know that he is an impact player.  Going pro now will not allow the draft experts to take the label of “impact player” and replace it with “injury prone” if he would be unlucky enough to get injured again at Duke next year.

One thing I am very sick of hearing whenever a high profile player in any sport is on the cusp of making the decision to go pro or not is: He should stay in school and get an education.  This is the dumbest argument of all time against going pro from college or even high school.  If you are a lock to be a 1^st round pick in any sport, you are guaranteed to a contract.  Even if you never sign another contract after that, and you don’t spend all of your money on gold plated toilet paper, you will have enough cash to go back to school.  You can complete schooling in the off season or after your playing year's are over.  “Once they leave, they’ll never go back to school.”  That might be true for many of the players, but guess what?  If that player isn’t that interested in a degree after they leave, they are probably not that interested in it even when they are in college.  So if they stay and play all 4 years of their eligibility in athletics, they still won’t graduate, they’ll fill their credit requirements with racquetball classes, never declare a major and still try to go pro after 4 years.  It’s a terrible argument to make against a kid going pro, so please never try this argument in my presence…thanks.

Reasons Not to Go -

He can’t leave with a feeling he didn’t accomplish all he wanted to accomplish at Duke.  11 games is less than I am going to play in my men’s league this spring.  He got a taste of the regular season in non-conference games, he got a taste of the NCAA Tournament in March, yet he missed out on ACC play and Final Four play.  He has to feel like this year was a bit of a lost year.  Also Kyrie must feel there is a ton more that should’ve been and can be accomplished next year at Duke.  He was on the bench and watched Nolan Smith have a National Player of the Year campaign, and if he decides to comeback, he will be a leader to go after that prize next year. 

We’ve seen in the NBA, "buddies" deciding in free agency and via forced trades going to play with their buddies and passing on bigger money to stay put.  That mindset this spring could come over to the college ranks.  Kyrie Irving and Austin Rivers are great friends.  This will be a big deciding factor for Kyrie, to have the chance to be “big men” on campus together with his best bud.  The Irving/Rivers backcourt would be the best in the country, hands down.  Duke would be again a favorite to win it all, largely due to the leadership of the two youngsters, Irving and Rivers. 

Speaking of buddies, another buddy of Kyrie Irving’s could make Irving’s decision to comeback easier.  Harrison Barnes and Irving are buddies as well, and Barnes considered Duke even more after Irving committed last spring.   Instead Barnes went to the arch rival of Irving’s choice in UNC, instantly creating a (more friendly than the rivalry itself) rivalry between the buddies.  They talked trash at the McDonald’s AA Game last spring, talking about whose team would be better, Duke or UNC.  Irving though never got to play head to head against his buddy/rival due to his toe injury.  I feel there is a good chance that what Barnes decides to do, Irving will do and vice versa.  I don’t think one will decide to go pro and then the other decides to stay in college.  I think these two will be talking to each other over the weekend, if Barnes says he is coming back to Chapel Hill, Kyrie won’t be able to pass up the opportunity to play against him in Duke blue next year, something he wasn't able to do this year.

Then there is just the behavior of Kyrie Irving throughout this year after his injury.  I don’t think a lot of players put in Irving’s shoes would’ve sat on the bench for each game, being the team’s biggest fan.  Not many would’ve risked re-injury to get back ahead of schedule for the NCAA Tournament knowing if they had not come back they were still being projected as a top 3 pick.  All of that shows me a kid who loves the college game.  It shows me that college basketball means a lot to Kyrie Irving, enough so that he did already risk his fortune awaiting him in the NBA for the NCAA Tournament this year.  If he can risk it this year, he can do that same thing again next year for the love of college basketball. 

Next year there is a good chance part of the NBA season is missed due to a lockout.  The NBA and the players after the season will need to agree upon a new collective bargaining agreement.  This chances of not getting paid and just sitting there waiting for the season to start after everyone makes up and agrees that, this many million belong here and this many million belongs there, are high.  Unfortunately once an agreement is come to, you will likely have a much shorter training camp, making an already tough task of acclimating to the NBA even tougher.  Many rookies that don’t figure out the league in their first year, get a bad rap, not only from fans but from their own teams and teams around the league.  This can follow you for your entire career as once you’re labeled as “not getting it” its tough to get that label taken off (just ask Adam Morrison).  Kyrie has to be thinking that risk may not be worth it.  He may decide to go and try for a championship with Duke and then come out next year when the labor negotiations have long been completed.  This will allow Irving the maximum opportunity to get ready to play in the league. 

Duke Fan’s Perspective of the Decision –

As a fan, I am really hoping that Kyrie makes the right decision for Kyrie Irving.  Without a doubt if he walks the campus at Duke he will hear classmates and fans telling him to come back.  If he watches ESPN or reads blogs (who reads those?) he will see many people saying he’d be crazy not to go pro.  In the end he needs to make the decision that he’ll be happiest with.  As a Duke fan, focusing on the team only, I would love to have Kyrie come back to Duke and seeing him play next to Austin Rivers.  The projected lineup with Irving back is stacked:

PG-Irving

SG-Rivers

SF-Curry

PF-Mas.Plumlee

C-Mar. Plumlee

Bench: Dawkins, Gbinije, Mi. Plumlee, Kelly, Cook, Hairston, Thornton and possibly Daniels (Don’t know some of these names?  Check back here for previews of the incoming and returning players for next year’s team)

Without Irving next year, I still think Duke has a championship caliber team.  Quinn Cook would start more than likely from day 1 at point guard, due to his superior offensive ability over Tyler Thornton.  We still would have one of the best backcourts in the country, and definitely one of the deepest.  With Cook, Curry, Rivers, Dawkins, Gbinije and Thornton, talent will not be hard to find.

So as you can see, Kyrie Irving’s decision will affect a lot in college basketball.  The great thing is, either choice for Kyrie Irving is a good choice.  Duke will be great with or without him, sure maybe better with, but still great without.  He is ready for the NBA now, but could be better prepared for it if he did comeback.  He has a fortune awaiting him either this year or next.  Most importantly the best part of this choice is that Kyrie Irving will handle this decision like he has handled his career at Duke up to this point, with class (looking your way Lebron).

Hey!  Now that you've read 2000 words about Kyrie Irving, are you wondering, "Boy, I wonder what this writer is listening to while writing this blog?".  YOUR IN LUCK!  Check out my other blog for the answer.