He's correct. But I am starting to think these are potentially not good business decisions by Duke. Here me out.
First, anytime you offer a scholly to a kid, you do run the risk of offering Lawrence Phillips a spot on your roster. That is way more glaring to a hoops roster than a football roster. See Baylor Basketball.
But that seems unlikely - even Coach K, despite making some sort of deal with the devil, is not stupid and is not a horrific judge of character based on the players he's had on roster. That said, he did offer a scholly to Rashad Suilaman, but if Suilaman and I guess Cory Maggette are your outliers, that is not half bad. Especially when you have to be honest and say whatever Suilaman did or did not do as it relates to sexual assault, we certainly have not had a perfectly clean house the last 20 years either.
But at some point, Coach K dies or retires. He's on his third and fourth hip and his Grecian formula does not protect him against aging. He is looking more and more like Dean Smith about two years before he retired. Who replaces Coach K and can they continue to compete with Kentucky and whoever is the flavor of the month as the go to One-and-done school??? If I were Duke basketball, I'd be much more comfortable replacing Coach K with one of his former point guards if they were modeling themselves on what Villanova does as opposed to Kentucky. I don't think what Duke is doing right now is sustainable after Coach K retires. If that is correct, they are going to struggle to return to their "old" recruiting model of getting the JJ Redicks and Grant Hills and Shane Battiers if they aren't actively recruiting those 3+ years players now.
I blame Harry Giles. And I think we dodged a bullet by not getting him. Clemson may find themselves feeling pretty good they didn't throw their team to one freshman and say make or break us, essentially breaking out their existing recruiting model that relies on 3 and 4 year players. Zion doesn't strike me as a system guy and I have a feeling that Coach K will get "hurt" again next year when the whole thing just doesn't work as they hope/expect.