Duke's Big White Semi-Stiff Forward Josh McRoberts declared for the NBA draft today. This is simple foolishness. Even among the litany of Big White Stiffs Duke has had over the years, it has also had really good collegiate basketball players like Laettner, Ferry and to a lesser degree Parks who never did well in the NBA. And McRoberts is just another mediocrity from the 2005 recruiting class that lacks true impact players other than Tyler Hansborough and Brandon Rush. Amazingly, McRoberts was the #1 recruit that year.
McRoberts is a 13-point, 7.9 rebound player on a Duke team that lacked any inside scoring or rebounding; in other words, those numbers were far too low. His career high is 22 points. He is an NBA "tweener" -- too bulky and slow for small forward, too small for power forward -- just like Billy Owens, who was a vastly better player.
And he's a white guy from Duke -- a program whose track record for white players in the NBA is putrid (blacks are another story: Battier, Brand, Boozer, pre-injury J-Will and G-Hill). If McRoberts can reconsider, he should. Otherwise, he'll be learning a new language and riding pine in Europe alongside other stalwarts like Greg Newton and Joey Beard next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment