It all happened over a holiday weekend, so I wasn’t able to write about it as I would have liked, but I guess you all know by now that Coach Mike Krzyzewski decided to spurn the Lakers and stay at Duke. Did you catch that story? If you looked hard enough, you could have found some media coverage.
As an ACC fan, I’m very glad that Coach K elected to stay at Duke. That seems to be the general consensus around the country as well. All the talking (and writing) heads thought it would be best for K to stay. It’s not really fair to say that it was the right decision though. Who could really say for certain that he wouldn’t have been fabulously successful in LA? I actually think he would have done well. But, when you have a situation like he’s built at Duke, you don’t walk away. The grass just doesn’t get any greener.
From what Coach K said at his press conference and in some interviews I’ve seen, his willingness to talk to the Lakers had nothing to do with the premature evacuations of Luol Deng, Shaun Livingston and others. He also implied that it had nothing to do with the expansion of the ACC. No, he said that was just an interesting opportunity to take on a new challenge. Granted, if he really did harbor some resentment over how his job has changed, he probably wouldn’t go blabbing about it to the media. That’s not how he works. Coach K is too smart to crap in the bed he just chose to sleep in.
One of the best side-plots of the few days of “will he” or “won’t he” was the sudden outbreak of conspiracy theories. In the week that Marlon Brando died, it was appropriate that the stories about Dean Smith, a soft-spoken, portly power figure most closely resembled another soft-spoken, portly power figure, Vito Corleone. Call him Don Smith.
Some stories had Deano himself calling on his lieutenant, Mitch Kupchak, to recruit Coach K away from Duke. It seems that Coach Smith was mighty tired of playing an uncustomary second fiddle in his own conference, so he wanted Krzyzewski taken care of; smooth the way for the Don’s successor, Roy “Michael” Williams to take charge of the ACC.
Another spin on that story is that Kupchak wanted Coach K out of college basketball so that he wouldn’t take all of Dean’s records. Maybe Dean didn’t call in this favor directly, but his men knew what was needed.
There’s no word about whether Kupchack invited Krzyzewski out to an Italian restaurant or to drive through any tool booths.
Other, less Godfatherly theories assumed darker intentions on Krzyzewski’s part. One had him choosing to pull this trick during the first days of new Duke President Richard Brodhead, teaching him right off the bat who drives the bus in Durham (by the way, someone didn’t send Dick the memo. When the word “head” is in your last name and your first name is Richard, well, you don’t abbreviate, OK?). Only after K watched President Brodhead chant his name with the students in Krzyzewskiville, did Coach K decide to stay at home.
Another idea is that Coach K floated this out because he wanted to make sure that Duke built him a new practice facility. This one makes a lot of sense, because as we all know, Duke has been known to play hardball with Mike. Why, it took over 20 years before they named the court after him!
But, all that is history now. Everything is now as it was a week ago. Mike Krzyzewski rules over the ACC and the NCAA and shows no signs of ending his reign. This is good. Good for everyone. Yeah, it sucks to get your butt kicked by Duke two or three times a year, but the conference needs him. College basketball needs him. College basketball needs stars, and the stars of the game are coaches, now more than ever. No star is brighter than Mike Krzyzewski.