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Bryant Crawford Hiring An Agent, Staying in Draft

Complacent Deac said:
Read carefully. The point is quite simple. We have lost our sense of community.

Beyond the coaches, our B ball players have few mentors on campus (academic support staff don’t count). They certainly have no connection to the general student body (some games attendance is about 30 total students not required to be there).

Thus, if the relationship with the coach/coaches disintegrates, they have no reason to stay. Disagree, sure, make a counter, sure, no worries. I mean have you not noticed the direction the school has gone under Hatch? Not good.

is this “take” any clearer?
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No. It was clear the first time I just thought it might have been sarcasm because it was so dumb. Clearly, you’re being serious that the problem we’re having in keeping players is because we don’t have as many “good ole NC boys” on campus now.

Yep, I am sure if you polled all the top 100 basketball players in the country as to what would make them decide to stay in school v leaving early their answer would be if the school had a bunch of rednecks from NC.

Our student section is empty because we suck. Becoming a more national school and less of a southern regional school has nothing to do with our program sucking. Clearly, you don’t like it for your own personal reasons. But, to attribute that to the failure of our basketball team over the last 8 years is completely absurd.
 
I don't understand why people, without the possession of really any facts, are convinced that Moore and Crawford are both making a terrible decision. Let's imagine that they are unhappy at Wake. Maybe it's the basketball program. Maybe it's the greater university. Maybe it's the combination of the two (they aren't exactly the campus heroes they probably imagined they would be / saw Collins being last year). Ok, so what do you do? If another year at Wake is just not tenable for whatever reason then your options are to transfer or to go pro. Transferring really isn't a good option at all. Seems unlikely that it would raise your profile enough to offset two years of lost earnings. Meanwhile, perhaps they have gotten positive feedback from international leagues. In which case, it seems like these could actually be quite solid, rational decisions.

That the biggest critics of these decisions are also the loudest advocates for Manning is probably not a coincidence and is, frankly, a little icky. It is getting a little hard to give a damn about this basketball program though so I will give the advocates credit for that at least.
 
big concern for me is that staying at wake to play basketball seems to have become quite unappealing based on the decisions being made. can’t recall another time when players were churning out the way they are now.
 
Les Grossman said:
No. It was clear the first time I just thought it might have been sarcasm because it was so dumb. Clearly, you’re being serious that the problem we’re having in keeping players is because we don’t have as many “good ole NC boys” on campus now.

Yep, I am sure if you polled all the top 100 basketball players in the country as to what would make them decide to stay in school v leaving early their answer would be if the school had a bunch of rednecks from NC.

Our student section is empty because we suck. Becoming a more national school and less of a southern regional school has nothing to do with our program sucking. Clearly, you don’t like it for your own personal reasons. But, to attribute that to the failure of our basketball team over the last 8 years is completely absurd.
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WFU students from NC are rednecks?
 
Even if we'd be better off without Crawford's bad decision making, hero ball, ole defense and turnover propensity, the better route out of that hole is to coach the player into a better mindset and approach to the game, rather than to loose 16+ points per game from a pretty good athlete. Why is he still making freshman like mistakes as a junior? He is either uncoachable or hasn't been coached very well.
 
I mean, there are literally 10,000 more NC rednecks at UNC-CH than WFU and their basketball program seems to be doing just fine.
 
WFU Lurker said:
I don't understand why people, without the possession of really any facts, are convinced that Moore and Crawford are both making a terrible decision. Let's imagine that they are unhappy at Wake. Maybe it's the basketball program. Maybe it's the greater university. Maybe it's the combination of the two (they aren't exactly the campus heroes they probably imagined they would be / saw Collins being last year). Ok, so what do you do? If another year at Wake is just not tenable for whatever reason then your options are to transfer or to go pro. Transferring really isn't a good option at all. Seems unlikely that it would raise your profile enough to offset two years of lost earnings. Meanwhile, perhaps they have gotten positive feedback from international leagues. In which case, it seems like these could actually be quite solid, rational decisions.

That the biggest critics of these decisions are also the loudest advocates for Manning is probably not a coincidence and is, frankly, a little icky. It is getting a little hard to give a damn about this basketball program though so I will give the advocates credit for that at least.
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If their ultimate goal is to make the NBA, this is a terrible decision for both as the odds for what they are doing leading to the NBA are incredibly long. You are also neglecting the fact that NBA execs have obviously told them it is highly unlikely that will be drafted this year and gave them aspects of their games to work on to get drafted next year. To many execs, this can lead to them thinking such players don't listen to good advice. There are tons of options for teams of players who do listen.

The concept here that they will make a ton of money internationally is a crap shoot as only a few leagues pay really well. Most of them have limits on foreign players. Thus, they would have to be considered stars to play in those league. At this time, they aren't.

The reality is if this was a business decision it was a really poor one for each of them.
 
birdman said:
Even if we'd be better off without Crawford's bad decision making, hero ball, ole defense and turnover propensity, the better route out of that hole is to coach the player into a better mindset and approach to the game, rather than to loose 16+ points per game from a pretty good athlete. Why is he still making freshman like mistakes as a junior? He is either uncoachable or hasn't been coached very well.
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Or he's trying too hard. His TO number is not as terrible as many here portray it as. If you watched many of the end of our games, many of our players disappeared more than DB Cooper, Amelia Earhart or Chris Weber in the last 2-3 minutes of games as well as at the end of many shot clocks.

He had a bad year last year, but he was, by far,. our best returning player.
 
RJKarl said:
Or he's trying too hard. His TO number is not as terrible as many here portray it as. If you watched many of the end of our games, many of our players disappeared more than DB Cooper, Amelia Earhart or Chris Weber in the last 2-3 minutes of games as well as at the end of many shot clocks.

He had a bad year last year, but he was, by far,. our best returning player.
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Completely agree with this part. It's a huge failure by the staff to not convince him to stay. But is sucks to be the best player on a bad team, I think. Sure you get good scoring numbers, but you also get a reputation for hero ball and fucking up the end of games.
 
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WFU Lurker said:
I don't understand why people, without the possession of really any facts, are convinced that Moore and Crawford are both making a terrible decision. Let's imagine that they are unhappy at Wake. Maybe it's the basketball program. Maybe it's the greater university. Maybe it's the combination of the two (they aren't exactly the campus heroes they probably imagined they would be / saw Collins being last year). Ok, so what do you do? If another year at Wake is just not tenable for whatever reason then your options are to transfer or to go pro. Transferring really isn't a good option at all. Seems unlikely that it would raise your profile enough to offset two years of lost earnings. Meanwhile, perhaps they have gotten positive feedback from international leagues. In which case, it seems like these could actually be quite solid, rational decisions.

That the biggest critics of these decisions are also the loudest advocates for Manning is probably not a coincidence and is, frankly, a little icky. It is getting a little hard to give a damn about this basketball program though so I will give the advocates credit for that at least.
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Various people have explained why they feel they are bad decisions on various threads - ad nauseum.
 
RJKarl said:
Or he's trying too hard. His TO number is not as terrible as many here portray it as. If you watched many of the end of our games, many of our players disappeared more than DB Cooper, Amelia Earhart or Chris Weber in the last 2-3 minutes of games as well as at the end of many shot clocks.

He had a bad year last year, but he was, by far,. our best returning player.
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"Trying too hard" is about as far as you could get from an accurate description of Crawford's play for WF during the 2017-8 Basketball season. Agree that some unfairly attacked him, but Crawford's play spoke for itself. His play, his attitude and the results all sucked.

Despite the foregoing, don't want to kill Crawford for the choice to "stay in the NBA draft" (I can't type that and not smirk) because it's likely there are others in his ear, who he trusted, and who he ultimately relied on to make this decision. Also, regardless if the decision was delusional, idiotic or sound, the decision is made. BC is not coming back. Hope he shocks the world and ends up making it big as a professional basketball player. If that doesn't happen, hope he gets his degree and has a long and successful career outside of hoop.
 
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So when people make bad decisions, why assume they’re just idiots who made bad decision instead of consider that they aren’t bad decisions given the situation?

Jumping out of a window is a bad decision. Jumping out of a window because a building is on fire is not. If you don’t see the building on fire and feel the heat, it’s on you, not them.
 
scooter84 said:
Various people have explained why they feel they are bad decisions on various threads - ad nauseum.
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No, not really.

People have said that they won't get drafted. Ok, well, duh. Then they assume the next best option is making $25k to play in the G-League. Ok, well, no.
 
RJKarl said:
If their ultimate goal is to make the NBA, this is a terrible decision for both as the odds for what they are doing leading to the NBA are incredibly long. You are also neglecting the fact that NBA execs have obviously told them it is highly unlikely that will be drafted this year and gave them aspects of their games to work on to get drafted next year. To many execs, this can lead to them thinking such players don't listen to good advice. There are tons of options for teams of players who do listen.

The concept here that they will make a ton of money internationally is a crap shoot as only a few leagues pay really well. Most of them have limits on foreign players. Thus, they would have to be considered stars to play in those league. At this time, they aren't.

The reality is if this was a business decision it was a really poor one for each of them.
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The odds of either making the NBA are already long, whether it's after this year or next. Certainly much longer than the odds of them making good money overseas, especially if they have received positive information from international teams or agents.

And, besides, this is not a business decision. It is a life decision. If there is disutility associated with spending another year at Wake then that should certainly be included in the equation.
 
There are players who leave college early for what looks like dumb reasons that eventually make the NBA. You can count them on one hand every year IMO. But they exist. For me and my fondness for all things Seattle Sonics circa Kemp and Payton, there is the case of Vincent Askew who left Memphis for god knows what reason, beat around Europe for a few years and came back a player.

There is the saga of former Spur, Gary Neal. I do like Crawford's body as a potential backup PG. He could do well in Europe in either a top league in a mid-tier country or a level down in Italy or Turkey or Spain. He has to figure out how to play within himself. It os is possible with less at stake (i.e., NBA future, college dominance on national tv), he can focus on making good decisions and becoming better at basketball and come back in 2 or 3 years with those lessons absorbed into his basketball dna. But I doubt it.

I do hope so though.
 
WFU Lurker said:
The odds of either making the NBA are already long, whether it's after this year or next. Certainly much longer than the odds of them making good money overseas, especially if they have received positive information from international teams or agents.

And, besides, this is not a business decision. It is a life decision. If there is disutility associated with spending another year at Wake then that should certainly be included in the equation.
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The crux of the "bad decision" argument has to be based on the added value of staying in college one more season versus the lost value of not going to Europe now. Crawford has a very low probability of landing on an NBA roster this year or next regardless of school, has exhibited minimal improvement over the last two season of college ball and only has about 10-12 years to make as much money as possible playing basketball before switching gears to establish some sort of less athletic career. It is not unreasonable for him to conclude that he has more to lose by staying than going at this point. Moore on the other had, could have gained a lot from another year of coaching from Manning and Horn, and probably could have turned himself into a second round pick with a few years career in the NBA ahead of him as a third string 5. His leaving early probably hurt his long term career prospects but it is not as 'obviously' a bad decision for Crawford. What is really obvious is that both of these decisions are bad for our basketball team.
 
Wake hoops is obviously in a really bad place and has had lots of bad news this off season. However, this seems to be larger than just a Wake problem. So many kids transferring now. So many kids leaving school early when the NBA is not a sure thing for them. So many kids leaving early when the NBA is not even a pipe dream for them. Being a senior used to mean that your were stronger, tougher, more experienced, and craftier then many of your opponents. Being a senior now just seems like it is uncool for the new generation of players. I guess I'm just an old and don't get it (I'm not that old, really) but college hoops just seems to be in a bad spot right now filled with players who want immediate gratification instead of the old way of working hard and improving your game year by year. Bah!!!!
 
SC DEAC said:
Wake hoops is obviously in a really bad place and has had lots of bad news this off season. However, this seems to be larger than just a Wake problem. So many kids transferring now. So many kids leaving school early when the NBA is not a sure thing for them. So many kids leaving early when the NBA is not even a pipe dream for them. Being a senior used to mean that your were stronger, tougher, more experienced, and craftier then many of your opponents. Being a senior now just seems like it is uncool for the new generation of players. I guess I'm just an old and don't get it (I'm not that old, really) but college hoops just seems to be in a bad spot right now filled with players who want immediate gratification instead of the old way of working hard and improving your game year by year. Bah!!!!
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Bingo. It just seems like there has been a cultural shift where no one really wants to be the Senior on a basketball team.
 
birdman said:
The crux of the "bad decision" argument has to be based on the added value of staying in college one more season versus the lost value of not going to Europe now. Crawford has a very low probability of landing on an NBA roster this year or next regardless of school, has exhibited minimal improvement over the last two season of college ball and only has about 10-12 years to make as much money as possible playing basketball before switching gears to establish some sort of less athletic career. It is not unreasonable for him to conclude that he has more to lose by staying than going at this point. Moore on the other had, could have gained a lot from another year of coaching from Manning and Horn, and probably could have turned himself into a second round pick with a few years career in the NBA ahead of him as a third string 5. His leaving early probably hurt his long term career prospects but it is not as 'obviously' a bad decision for Crawford. What is really obvious is that both of these decisions are bad for our basketball team.
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If everyone returned (or even just Moore and Craw), we would have started 4- 4* and one 5* player, to think we wouldn't have had a really good season is simply being illogical. By having another good season, Bryant could have gotten drafted or at least made the G League. Even without Doral, Bryant would have been featured. No one will see him overseas.

By not listening to NBA execs, Bryant will have to explode in Europe or China to even get a look that he would have gotten after the upcoming season. Very simply, if he's not in the top Spanish, Turkish, Israeli or Italian league, he will be out of sight, out of mind and a malcontent.

That's the definition of a bad decision.
 
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