NCAA: Is Adrian Wojnarowski Wrong About Mike Krzyzewski?

Late Sunday night, as he does, Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski dropped a patented #WojBomb, but in a much different way.

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Fresh off a victory in the gold medal game for the FIBA World Cup, USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski was on top of the basketball world. Already with multiple Olympic gold medals and with another championship to his credit, nobody really thought about questioning Coach K and his involvement with Team USA. In fact, this really wasn’t a topic of conversation at all until Woj used some hot takes to spark the conversation.

As Sunday morphed into Monday, most sports fans had forgotten about Woj’s column and its strong undertones. Harsh words were typed, but with all the media attention being on the NFL and its continued “fight” against domestic violence, everybody seemingly forgot about it.

However, it’s not something that should be completely neglected, especially with what it could mean for college basketball and international basketball competition in the future.

In the piece, Woj highlights several areas. The premise of it was a “call to arms” of sort for NBA teams to take their superstar players out of consideration for future events and let the nation use the younger, less experienced, lesser money makers of the NBA handle international play. Although, while that was the foundation, the reasons behind it were quite, shall we say, scathing.

Woj essentially calls for the removal of superstars from international play as he says, “There is a USA Basketball storefront selling patriotism and duty with a backroom reality that peddles the Blue Devils and Nike swooshes.”

There’s a lot of factors at play here, but what it all boils down to is that he’s saying Coach K is in it merely for the growth of Duke basketball and not for the growth of United States basketball.

Now, when most read this piece, the debate began as to whether or not Coach K really is just using his reign as head coach for Team USA as a way to garner more attention and better players for his full-time job as Duke’s head coach. Think of it as Gordon Bombay in Mighty Ducks 2 when he uses sponsors and notoriety as a way to make himself a brand.

In that film, Bombay gets caught up in making money and making himself a bigger persona in the hockey landscape, similar to what Woj has said of Coach K.

While Woj may seem a little off base with his “accusations,” he’s not entirely wrong, nor is he entirely correct.

Coach K took over Team USA in 2006. Since that time, Duke’s recruiting numbers have grown, as have the team’s overall recruiting rankings. While a very, very successful program, Duke was never the primary destination for the top players in the country.

If anything, the Blue Devils consisted of secondary recruits and a mix of players that fit into Coach K’s coaching style, one that usually requires players to stick around for more than one year. The funny part of this, though, is that Coach K took the job as USA coach at the exact same time the one-and-done era began, meaning that a successful program such as Duke would be further in play for top-tier recruits. And so it begins.

Since 2006, Duke has had three five-star recruits (Kyrie Irving, Austin Rivers and Jabari Parker) come in, stay for one season and become first-round picks in the following NBA draft. What appeals to top-tier recruits out of high school is playing for a coach that can get them to the NBA sooner rather than later.

It’s what’s made John Calipari so successful in recruiting at Kentucky. He’s almost a direct pipeline to the NBA. Duke is just trying to keep up.

So Duke has, in fact, benefited from Coach K’s involvement with Team USA, as the appeal for him is strong. Who wouldn’t want to play for the coach that spends his summers coaching the best players in the world? Imagine what he could teach you to be the next big NBA star.

That’s something that’s very intriguing for a high school player that feels like they could be in the NBA in one year’s time.

However, while Duke has stepped its game up with top-tier recruits in recent years, including two in this year’s class that are expected to be first-round picks next year, Coach K hasn’t exactly had success with those players.

Krzyzewski has been head coach for Team USA since 2006, or eight years in normal people time. During those eight years, Duke has won exactly one national championship, been to two Elite Eights, four Sweet 16s and been eliminated from the NCAA tournament in the first weekend four times.

It should be noted that that title in 2010 happened because Duke had a group of players that had already committed to the Blue Devils prior to Coach K taking the role of Team USA coach.

In the eight years before USA Coach K, Duke won one national title, made three appearances in the Final Four and five in the Sweet 16. Looking at the numbers, while Duke has still been a solid regular season team, Coach K has yet to find success with those top-tier recruits that stick around for just one season.

This is actually something I looked at about two weeks ago. Duke + Coach K + top-tier recruits/NBA prospects does not = success.

Woj made some very good points in his piece, but he’s not entirely right or wrong. One interesting point raised is that while Calipari is seen as the spearhead for top recruits directly to the NBA, he’s also frowned upon, even scorned, for his tactics. He’s seen success because of it and made himself even more marketable to recruits because of the number of players he sends to the NBA every year.

You can’t really blame Coach K for trying to do what Calipari does by using his platform as Team USA coach. However, were Calipari chosen to be the coach for Team USA and did the same thing, he would be seen as a scoundrel for building his brand once again.

This brings another interesting point to light. Is there a double standard for Coach K? It’s entirely possible. Really, there hasn’t been anything in Krzyzewski’s past to say that he would use Team USA to his advantage. He’s one of the most respected coaches in the world, collegiate or professional.

Nobody would expect him to be one to use one aspect of his professional life to promote another. It’s just not something people would see in him. Although, it’s not impossible.

Overall, while Woj’s column was interesting and surprised many, he made some very valid points in the piece. Coach K may, in fact, be building up Duke and himself while playing the role of head coach for the best players in the world. It has helped him recruit tops players in the country, ones that will soon find their way to the NBA.

This, in turn, could lead to even more top recruits to become Blue Devils and more money for Krzyzewski before he retire. All may be true, but it’s hasn’t exactly been helpful to Duke’s success in recent years.

Woj does what Woj does. He drops bombs. His latest one on Coach K was interesting, but it wasn’t the most interesting thing about the bomb, it was how right and how wrong it actually is.