Mike Krzyzewski to the Lakers

[Jedi Master Carr]

Now why in the world would he be so stupid.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1833434

Did he learn nothing form Spurrier? I am sure he is wishing he had stayed at Florida. I think he will smarten up unless the Lakers give him an unbelievable offer.

[Figrin D'an]

The offer has already been made. 5 years, $40 million. He'd be the highest paid coach in all of professional sports. Pretty unbelievable, if you ask me. I think any of us, in his shoes, would at least listen to the offer and mull it over.

I'd hardly consider it stupid. Comparing Spurrier's jump to the NFL to this is apples to oranges. Two very different coaching situations. Personally, I think he's going to end up staying at Duke, because there is at least one carrot dangling out there for him yet... the all-time D-1 wins record. Considering it would be Dean Smith (or potentially Bob Knight, should he get there first) he'd be surpassing to get it, that could be a major incentive to stay.

[JMK]

Well Coach K has nothing left to prove at the college level. Why not try pro? It's not like he's a senior citizen. If it doesn't work out he can always get back in to D1 ball.

[CMJ]

I can definitely see why he'd go. What else does he have to prove at Duke? He makes alot of money there...but it's maybe a fourth of what he'd make in Los Angeles. The LA Press was sure he was gonna take the job on Thursday night. They basically reported that he WOULD.

The fact that he's still mulling it over makes me think he'll stay. I hope he does...some coaches just belong in college. I can't imagine Wooden, Knight, or Smith in the pro's. Kryzewski is definitely in that same breath.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well I was comparing the jump with Spurrier because they both were treated like gods on campus and if he leaves and fails at LA he won't get that back. Also there has only been one college coach who has suceeded on the NBA level and that is Larry Brown. Every one else has pretty much failed.

[JMK]

ESPN radio has just reported that Coach K is staying at Duke.

Blue Devil Nation rejoice!

[CMJ]

Beat me to it man - just saw a blurb on ESPN News. ;)

This is good for college basketball. Mike Montgomery will most likely be regretting his jump to the NBA after a few months. I wish he'd stayed at Stanford too.

Great article I just found.

***************************

Coach K's decision good for college basketball

By rejecting Lakers to stay at Duke, Krzyzewski strengthens college game

COMMENTARY

By Mike Celizic
NBCSports.com contributor

Updated: 1:27 p.m. ET July 05, 2004

The Lakers can probably count themselves lucky that Mike Krzyzewski didn’t take them up on the offer to coach Team Dysfunction. But the real winners in this are college basketball, its fans and Duke University.

The Lakers will get along without Coack K on the sideline, and they’ll probably get along better without him than they would have with him. But if he had gone the way of so many before him and jumped like a porpoise for a herring at the $40 million L.A. was dangling in front of his beak, the college game would have taken a devastating hit.

It wouldn’t have been just about losing the game’s premier name – sorry, Bobby Knight fans, but your guy, legendary as he is, has long since been eclipsed by the ultimate Dukie. Someone else would have come along to take Krzysewski’s place at the top of the collegiate heap.

Rather, if Coach K had gone to the Lakers, it would have cheapened the value of college coaching as a career. If the biggest name in the business had decided there was a better, more worthy and more meaningful level to go to, then everyone else coaching college ball would be on the same level as a minor league baseball manager. They would have been talented guys trying to get to the big leagues.

By staying at Duke and turning down $8 million a year, Krzyzewski said as emphatically as possible that the job he has is the best job he can get. He said that coaching college kids, even if they come for a year or two and leave, has more intrinsic value than trying to get NBA players to do what you tell them to do. He said that education is important, that a college can be as big a franchise as a city.

Most important, Krzyzewski said money isn’t everything. He said there is a point at which a bigger paycheck doesn’t justify tearing apart your life, leaving a place you’ve loved for nearly a quarter century and come to think of as your own, and moving to a land of bigger headlines and more camera crews. He said that personal satisfaction and a sense of belonging has a value that can’t be measured in digits to the left of a decimal point.

Twenty-four years. That’s how long Coach K has been wearing out the finish on the sidelines in Durham. If he wants to coach until he’s in his 80s, he can double that. No college president will ever fire him. No serious columnist will ever call for his head. No one will joke if he gives his players books to read.

He has won three championships and had good shots at probably a dozen more. In this era of parity in the college game and players who seldom stay their allotted four years, that’s awfully good.

But beyond the titles and the great teams are the intangibles that Krzyzewski brings to college basketball. He has been a beacon of integrity and honor, a man who gets good kids and helps them become good men. He has done things right, operating a program at the very highest level at an institution that cuts no academic corners. He has been what all coaches should be: a teacher, a man who makes people better.

In that, he is the John Wooden of our times. He’ll never win the titles that Wooden did; no one will. Those days are gone forever. But he carries the mantle of Wooden, the exemplar of what a coach should be.

Had he left, all that would have been forgotten. From being the most important man in the program, he would have become the guy who has to make Kobe Bryant happy and beg and wheedle everybody else to maybe pay a little bit of attention to the program. He could never have been in the pros what he was in college. Phil Jackson, who would like us all to admit that he’s the best pro coach ever, couldn’t get through to this year’s Lakers. No college-boy coach was going to do it, either.

In staying at Duke, Krzyzewski acknowledged that being a college coach is an end in itself, and that taking a shot at the pros could not make his life better. It may have made him more famous, but it wouldn’t have made him a better person.

And that’s great for anyone who loves sports. Even a Lakers fan should be able to appreciate what he’s done and be grateful for it. Duke fans, of course, will be ecstatic, but North Carolina fans should be happy, as well.

Krzyzewski took a weekend to think it over, which means the temptation was there. He wouldn’t be human if he had rejected out of hand all that money and the enormous ego trip that goes along with it.

The fact he rejected it sets him above nearly everyone else. He’s at the top of his game, and his game is college ball, not pro ball. It’s where he became what he is. It’s where he will now stay for as long as he wants.

It’s a great day for everyone.

Mike Celizic writes regularly for NBCSports.com and is a freelance writer based in New York.

[Jedieb]

Great news for Duke and college basketball. I think he made the right choice. I don't blame him at all for entertaining the offer. It was after all, $40M and an opportunity to coach at the highest level. But in the end, loyalty and family won out. Good news all around.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I think he made the better move, and actually the Lakers are better off without him, I think it would have hurt them in the end. They will probably get Rudy T, who is a better Pro coach.

[CMJ]

Originally posted by Jedi Master Carr
I think he made the better move, and actually the Lakers are better off without him, I think it would have hurt them in the end. They will probably get Rudy T, who is a better Pro coach.

That's impossible to say. He's never coached in the pro's before. I actually think he woulda been successful in the NBA - I just didn't want him to jump.

[JMK]

Originally posted by CMJ
That's impossible to say. He's never coached in the pro's before. I actually think he woulda been successful in the NBA - I just didn't want him to jump.

BUT---you gotta keep in mind where he was going to. Coaching the Lakers is a constant headache where more time is spent posturing, politicising and doing damage control rather than coaching. No one is going to tell Kobe how to play, or how many shots to take. Kobe is the defacto coach/owner and star of that team. He seems to be making ALL of the choices.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Yeah that is what I meant the NBA is a different animal honestly, there are a lot of egos to control, you don't have to worry about that in College, they are stuck playing for you. The NBA players run over you, some like Krzyzewski might have trouble with this, alot of College coaches have been unable to do it, like Pitino and Calapari. Rudy T is used to coaching egos so I think he would have better luck.

[CMJ]

The deal with Coach K vs other college coaches that made the jump - is he's flexible. He HAS dealt with alot of egos(if you remember Laettner was one helluva arrogant SOB back in the day) and he never had a set system like Boeheim or some of his contemporaries.

He's a "screamer" but not as much as Pitino,or Calipari were. Plus, he usually has his assistants do most of that. ;) He has always molded the way he's coached with the talent he's had - not the other way around.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well I am not sure if his style would have worked, of course we will never know.

[CMJ]

Didn't I just say his style was more adaptable than some of his contemporaries? Coach Krzyzewski is no Coach Knight I assure you of that. :lol

I'm THRILLED he's staying put, but I hav e no doubt he would succeed in the pro's .

[Jedi Master Carr]

Heh well I just don't think he would have done well but hey who knows, it doesn't matter now since he will probably never go to the NBA at this point.

[JMK]

No way, he's there for life, like his contract says. :)