Read some of the Carolina board. They seem to think the reason they are ahead of us is we were paying players and they weren't, so we had a smoother transition. They actually think they run a clean program, which is hilarious. They seem to think we have been playing players since 99. I read the same things repeatedly on other boards. I don't think that is true, but several things have bothered me over the years.
1. The Lance Thomas jewelry loan. While a senior, he was loaned how much? 30 thousand for jewelry from a jewelry store in NYC. This seems insane considering he was a borderline NBA pick at that time. It just seemed sketchy. If he was declared ineligible our title could have been stripped like USC.
2. The Zion's parents house. Any other program does this and I would suspect they are dirty. USC got slammed for doing this with Reggie Bush.
Sorry to bring this up but these two things and maybe some Bagley being paid rumors have always bothered me. I give us the benefit of the doubt; but if I were not a Duke fan I wouldn't. I guess it doesn't matter now with NIL, but it does make me wonder sometimes. Any thoughts? Is it just opposing fans jealousy? I've never really gotten any answers other than the NCAA looked into it and dismissed it.
In regards to the Lance Thomas thing, I live in an area where there are alot of IU/UK/Louisville fans and they always bring that up. I don't know what's true, but what I do know is Lance Thomas was a role player (an amazing role player in 2010) but still just a role player, why would K risk everything for a role player???
It is fact that Zions family went from a 150K home to a 900K home when he played at Duke, but guess what? They stayed at that home after Zion left Duke too. Loans exist, no different than Lebrons mom taking out a car loan to get a H2 back in the day. When you know millions are on the horizon, why should you wait??
None of this bothers me. What would bother me is if we didn't land Zion or Bagley or any of the other top recruits we were battling for.
To sum everything up. I think this is a combo of opposing fans jealousy and also Duke/K doing whatever it takes to win at the highest level, but still doing things within the "rules." And those "rules" were outdated once basketball players became celebrities, so like 1980?????
Also every school has accusations like this. Ask any Kentucky fan about how their players for 30+ years always had a brand new Lexus driving around campus, and most of those kids came from families that could never afford one.
