Using any connotation of the word "failure" to describe this season, this team, or Coach K is laughable hyperbole. The beautiful, heartless reality of March Madness is that the best team simply doesn't always win. Does that make them failures? Uh, no.
K always recruits the best players. He's a players coach and that's what players love about him. They get to play their game. Sometimes that means we're post heavy, or sometimes we're perimeter heavy. We've won titles both ways, and everywhere in between. Even last year, we had amazing post players, we had two great 3-point shooters in Allen and Trent, but we were awful on defense. Sometimes you just can't have it all. Even when you do have it all, like the 99 Duke team, you still can lose.
1 - "Coach K hasn’t made a Final Four since winning it all in 2015, despite having 11 first-round picks in the NBA draft, if you count this year’s group, in that span."
-That's a pretty weak argument when you dig into it. First of all, one Final Four in 5 whole years? How does Coach K even have a job?! Of the 11 picks (he's assuming Tre goes first round), 7 of them lost single-possession games in the Elite 8 to veteran teams, 3 lost to a Final Four team (South Carolina) while playing in South Carolina. The other was Brandon Ingram in a rebuilding year following the 2015 National Title Season and losing our most of our starting lineup.
2 - "Michigan State, like every other team the Blue Devils faced over the past two weeks, packed the paint with defenders..."
-That's not rocket surgery. Everyone knew how to beat us, and we were still a bucket or a free throw or one fewer turnover or one foul called when Zion was mugged on a post entry pass away from winning. This was the team we had, and it was a damn good one.
3 - "It’s almost impossible to develop a supporting cast when so much of the team turns over on an annual basis. Duval and Trent would probably have been better off returning to school..."
-There's an awful lot to unpack in this statement because it requires a few assumptions to have a shred of validity. The first incorrect assumption is that Trevon and Gary would have stayed but they were recruited over (this is clearly the opinion of the author because he wrote an
article dedicated solely to this premise last April). Trevon was
one-and-done regardless of the incoming class, and Gary was drafted and is making 1.3 million at 20 years old. Guys coming in have a plan and know roughly their draft stock. Frank Jackson had the exact same plan and isn't any different than Duval or Trent. They are professionals and deserve to work on their craft in a professional environment, not the pseudo-amateurism that the NCAA employees.
The other implied assumption is that, because we ended up being so paint heavy, we should have just developed our perimeter shooters better and, voila, guaranteed title. The only options we had in this regard are Alex or Jack. Even if you can score more a few more points with them on the court, it doesn't matter because they weren't as good defensively as 'Ques or Javin.
4 - "Players without as much natural talent need to learn to play within a system on both ends of the floor."
-The best players are going to play. If you have an NBA-capable player, and you sacrifice some of his playing time in favor of developing his replacement or force him into a system, it gets harder to recruit. Look no further than what the author says later: "Little, once projected as a top-five pick, will be lucky to sneak into the lottery, and his fate will be used against the Tar Heels in future recruiting battles."
-This is the alternative, and the author contradicts his entire article here. His point is that Duke doesn't develop players and they lost because of it, but look what happens when you try to force a player with NBA potential into a supporting, developmental role: they leave regardless. Your alternative is to recruit and be like every other college team out there. The point is, there is no guaranteed path to winning a title. We've had young, incredible talent and lost, and we've had senior, less-talented teams who have won.
5 - "This has been the least successful of any era of Duke basketball since he took over in Durham, and a coach obsessed with legacy will be remembered by a generation of fans as someone who never got the most out of his players."
-That's a joke, right? No one can reasonably judge Coach K's 40 year career over the past few seasons (which have been fantastic by any standard) and claim he never got the most out of his players because Zion didn't win a title. Over the past ten seasons, we've had two national titles, three elite 8's, two sweet sixteens, and 3 early tournament exits. That's pretty damn good. Two of his former players were coaches in the damn tournament even, and most years it could be four or five (Brey, Collins, and Capel).
I read it somewhere on this very board, I think in the middle of last season, that "expectation breeds disappointment." We all have high hopes for our team, especially when we have great players on it. This year they were higher than most. But March Madness is cruel. Was it K's best coaching job ever? Maybe not, but to say he never gets the most out of his players is willful ignorance.
I like to say I earned my fandom HARD
