On Monday, Duke recruit Shaun Livingston and North Carolina recruit J.R. Smith both announced that they are going to skip college and enter the NBA draft. Both say that they don’t plan to hire agents, leaving the possibility that they will instead decide to play in college. I think that’s extremely unlikely to happen. Livingston’s grandfather and father both still say that he should and will go to Duke, but he’s projected as a top five pick. It’s hard to believe that he’s going to hear anything to change his mind at this point. Smith is projected to go no higher than the mid teens, but he sounds determined to play in the NBA. He hasn’t said anything for weeks that made it sound like he wanted to play in college. Frighteningly, one of the motivations he listed was other players in postseason all star games telling him he should jump. What a great source of career advice!
So what will this mean for Duke and UNC next year? For Duke, it’s another tough blow. They already lost Luol Deng, who would have been their best player and with Livingston, they lost their point guard. So now Duke really only has eight scholarship players, including no natural point guards. On the flip side, six of those eight were McDonald’s All Americans and two, Sheldon Williams and J.J. Redick, are college All American level players. Don’t shed any tears for Duke.
At UNC, the loss really doesn’t hurt that much. Yeah, JR Smith looks like a helluva player, but that team is already stacked and there are only so many minutes to go around. Rashad McCants plays the same position and he’ll be a strong candidate for national Player Of The Year next year. With McCants, Raymond Felton, Sean May and Marvin Williams, UNC still has four players who are likely first round draft picks when they decide to leave college.
So, now that all the ACC players are settled, I can go ahead and do my early analysis of next year’s ACC. Keep your eye out.