bad news 4 duke

[GritzRgreat]

highly recruited basketball forward kris humphries will not be attending duke next year.no news on why but he has asked and has been granted out of his letter of intent.

that leaves the devils with just one recruit this season.

WF loul michael deng.

i am a big duke fan

its bad news but no biggie.

duke will be duke with or without him.

i do wish him luck.

[@DCGoldPants]

uh, where did you hear this?

link?

[GritzRgreat]

www.chronicle.duke.edu/

i heard about it on the panthers message board.

a wake fan posted it.

[@DCGoldPants]

Humphries abandons Duke hoops

by Mike Corey

May 22, 2003

Kris Humphries, a 6-foot-8 McDonald's All-American from Minnesota, was granted his release from his National Letter of Intent to play basketball for Duke Monday afternoon.

As of Wednesday evening, the reasons behind Humphries' requested release were still unclear.

"I really don't know why Kris has asked for his release," Humphries' high school head coach Ken Novak wrote in an e-mail Wednesday. "He seemed to love everything about Duke.... I'm sure Kris will clarify things at a later date."

For now, however, the Hopkins High School star has left the world of college basketball guessing. Speculation has abounded regarding where Humphries will attend school in the fall, with the top three schools predicted as the University of Minnesota, Kansas University and Indiana University.

Indeed, a feeding frenzy has already begun for Humphries by all schools with scholarships still available. Dale Stahl, Humphries' assistant coach in high school, told the Herald-Sun of Durham that he had received calls from 12 schools since the release was announced. Among the schools that had called were Minnesota and Indiana.

Kris and his father, William, did not return phone calls from the Chronicle Tuesday or Wednesday.

Additionally, NCAA rules prohibit any member of the Duke coaching staff to comment on Humphries or the situation. The only action Duke has taken was the distribution of a press release, stating simply that Humphries had been released from his National Letter of Intent.

Though such a scenario is rare at Duke, the Blue Devil's basketball program has retained its respectability despite the incident.

"It's very good of Duke to give him his release," said basketball recruiting guru Seth Davis. "A lot of schools would not do that. I mean, give me a break, it's May. Duke can't fill that spot. He didn't just make a commitment to Duke, Duke made a commitment to him."

The loss of Humphries puts a significant damper on Duke's recruiting class, as the power forward was one of just two incoming scholarship players for the Blue Devils in 2003. A 230-pounder, Humphries is one of the top-10 recruits in 2003, as he averaged 25.5 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, five steals and 2.5 blocks per game his senior season.

Duke's lone scholarship freshman in 2003-04 then will be Luol Deng of the Blair Academy in New Jersey. He is ranked as the top high school player enrolling in college in the fall.

Minnesota and Kansas were Humphries' other top choices before making a verbal commitment to Duke in July of 2002. The Golden Gophers may be particularly attractive now, however, for three reasons: it is his father's alma mater; three scholarships are still availalble; and forward Rick Rickert, Minnesota's top returning player for 2003-04, recently decided to leave school for the NBA. Rickert's absence creates a significant offensive need for the Golden Gophers, one that Humphries could potentially fill.

A statement from Kris' father William, who played football for Minnesota, further hints that the hometown school may be the current front-runner.

"Kris wants the opportunity to play closer to home," he told the Pioneer Press Tuesday.

However, Kris' father was less specific in a phone interview with the Herald-Sun Tuesday.

"There's nothing going on right now—it's early," he said. "We're taking it one day at a time. I'm actually trying to corner Kris to figure out what the next step is. I just don't know."

Novak also said that he was unsure of any plans Humphries had for his next school.

When Humphries does choose a new school, he may not even be eligible to play during his freshman year, regardless of the college he chooses to ultimately attend because of National Letter of Intent regulations - Humphries will have to sit out at least one year unless he applies for and wins an appeal to the Collegiate Commissioners Association.

[yank]

Here's an article from Duke Basketball Report. It basically says Humphries and his dad have a grossly inflated opinion of his skills and wanted to be showcased for the NBA. If he can't get PT at Duke - and he would have had to struggle for it this year - its a joke to think he would have been ready for the NBA soon.

http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/ourcall/

Now that Duke and Kris Humphries have parted ways, it's a good time to ask: what the heck just happened?

In a nutshell, if you want to boil it down to the most basic things, it's this: Kris Humphries, and his father, William, are more focused on the level after the next level than Duke is. Put more bluntly, while Duke and Coach K have supported players who want to leave early for the NBA and who are ready, including Elton Brand, Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Mike Dunleavy, the Humphries were so focused on The League that Duke amounted to a pit stop, possibly a one-lap race.

If it turns out that it was Duke who said no, then we're immensely proud of the basketball program. Kris Humphries is a talented kid who might well have started. He's big, strong, he can shoot, and knows the game. He's also still a juvenile, he learned his craft in Minnesota, not exactly a basketball hotbed (read: no huge competition), and he has proven exactly nothing so far against collegiate competition, let alone pro standards.

He's a blank check in some respects. Not to say he couldn't be great, because he could. But so far he's proved nothing.

The way we see it, and this is opinion, not factual insight, but we're guessing either the Humphries said they wanted certain guarantees about playing time, in order to maximize his pro potential, or that they explicitly said that Kris would only be at Duke for one year.

That wouldn't surprise us since there was such a buzz this spring about Humphries possibly applying for the draft. We really didn't take it seriously because, come on, how could you? Who could be that foolish? This is a kid who has some upside, without question, but is he a better player than Creighton's Kyle Korver? Korver is a superb player, but he's projected as a late second-round pick. Korver would kill Humphries at this point in his career.

Even among the high school players applying this year, Humphries had little chance of moving ahead of them. LeBron? C'mon. Travis Outlaw? Ndubi Ebi? James Lang? Kendrick Perkins? The Humphries had sense enough to realize - at least we think they did - that Kris would have a disastrous draft this season.

So what happened? Were they maneuvering for next year? Did they think they had Coach K over a barrel?

We do know that Coach K, having heard the rumors, flew up to Minnesota to ask in person a couple of weeks ago. Obviously we don't know what happened there, and we don't know what led to Monday's announcement, but we would bet our bottom dollar on this: Mike Krzyewski is not going to change the way Duke does things in order to help Kris Humphries get to the NBA faster.

If it turns out that the Humphries made specific demands about playing time, or guarantees about Kris's role at Duke, or said that he would definitely be leaving after his freshman year, then what's the point of coming in the first place? And what does that do to the rest of the team to know that this guy is playing for the scouts as a freshman? Aside from probably really pissing off Shelden Williams, Shavlik Randolph, Michael Thompson and Luol Deng, Krzyewski would have to employ a significant double standard, and that would be suicide for his team.

Finally, a word about basketball fathers in general. Look, like you, if you have kids, we want our kids to be successful and wealthy. We want postcards from Rio and the Riviera and grandkids who speak several languages. Would we let our kids join a rock tour at 17 if they were promised millions? Hell, no. Well, the NBA is not much different.

Aside from the basketball, there is a lot of baggage that goes with the NBA life, including shocking levels of child support, sexually transmitted diseases, using women like tissue paper, groupies, leaches, rip-off artists, hangers-on, lots of drinking, and other serious problems. In general, while the pay is astonishing, it's a coarse and often disgusting way of life, and it tends to corrupt people in bad ways.

That's not to say it gets to everyone - John Stockton was a guy who was totally focused on his job and, apparently, family as well. At one public event, someone made a joke about how all the former ballplayers present had had tons of women. Bob Cousy made it a point to seek the guy out and say - not me, that he had never been with anyone but his wife. A.C. Greene was often ridiculed for his long-held virginity, but he kept to his principles.

Then there's Tim Duncan, David Robinson, George Lynch, who we have always admired since his days at UNC, Shane Battier, Alan Henderson, Juan Dixon, all top-flight people.

We're not saying that Kris isn't of that caliber, because frankly, we don't know what his character is like. But what we do know is that he's a kid, and his dad seems to think that the cash he could get in the pros is worth whatever innocence his son retains. That's their choice, and that's as it should be. And we'll certainly wish him well as he takes his leave. But for the life of us, we cannot understand how a father - or a mother, uncle, or grandparent for that matter - can focus so intensely on money when the issue is not financial security but the character and integrity of their child. Everyone says that you can't turn down that kind of money, and in some cases, yeah, that's true, particularly if you're dirt poor one day and loaded the next. But really, aside from the dream of playing against the best, and being wealthy, how does the NBA help your child to grow up? Basically by smacking him around, that's how. If you strip away the money, in a million years, you'd never let your 17-year-old hang out with people like Sean Kemp, Jason Williams (of Memphis), Dennis Rodman, Ron Artest, George Karl, Joseph Forte, Anthony Mason, Latrell Sprewell, or Rasheed Wallace. Never.

At the end of it all, to us, when you look at the world you are sending your kid into, and you know that it's full of craziness, sexual predators, and people who are waiting to take ruthless advantage of your son in every other way possible, well, to us the question is really simple: how much will it take for you to sell out your child? And why is the line so damned, depressingly long?

[NavyDave]

Fortunately us Terp fans can win with Burger King Americans instead of the full of themselves Big Mac americans

[W&M]

Although not a Duke fan, I have actually been following Humphries quite a bit given that his teammate (Dan Coleman) will be headed to Boston College.

Anyway, the way I hear it, Humpries now realizes that Duke is 4 deep at the forward spot, and that unless he improves a great deal, his minutes would be limited. This kid has a big head, and may not have the game to go with it.

This is not a big loss for Duke, and probably a benefit, in that it will be easier to recruit another big Man next year, as the depth chart will look better ... and it allows Duke to spread out its players a little better.

Sounds like Humphries will stay at home in Minnesota ... oh well.