Irving, Barnes Have Tough Decisions to Make

It’s officially hand-wringing season for the majority of college basketball fans… the month-or-so between your favorite team’s last game and the deadline to declare for the NBA draft.  It’s the time of year that controls how a fan views the off-season.  Will you be in a deep depression, sitting silently by yourself looking down at the replica jersey of your favorite early-entry defection trying to remember the good times you had watching them play while not wanting to imagine how life can go on without them?  Or will you be celebrating the return of your team’s savior by saving a place on the wall to add one more framed national championship Sports Illustrated cover next April?  It’s the Groundhog Day of college basketball … if your superstar underclassman sees his NBA shadow and is frightened back into his dorm room for another year, it means two more weeks of car flags flying proudly around town.  Despite the fact that there are as many champions who lost key players to the draft the previous year as there are champions who returned all of their superstars, it’s one of the most intriguing times of year for all fans.

In this area, there are five key figures to keep an eye on … Kyrie Irving and Mason Plumlee from Duke, and Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller from UNC.  At this moment, the general consensus is that Kyrie has finished his collegiate career, Mason Plumlee is undecided, and the entire trio of Tarheels will return for 2011-12.  Also at this moment, no one outside of those five individuals, their families and their coaches have any idea what they’re going to do – and potentially they don’t know either.  The news on Irving stems from one person, ESPN’s Chad Ford.  Ford stated in an ESPN insider article that Irving was “one foot out of the door” while Mason Plumlee was “50/50”.  The context of the article was Ford’s opinion, and was not based on any conversations he’d had with the players themselves.  Since then, CBS, Yahoo, and numerous mainstream blogs have picked up the story with “ESPN reporting that Irving is going pro” as the backbone of their articles.  This, in a nutshell, is how journalists cover this time of year. 

On the UNC side of things, the story gets a little more humorous.  Apparently the rumors of Zeller, Barnes and Henson’s package decision to return stems from a report from a student who claims to have been at Tyler Zeller’s apartment when Barnes and Henson came over to hang out.  Allegedly, Henson said “It’s time to talk about this decision, bra” and the three retired to Zeller’s bedroom to talk things over.  Unfortunately, we don’t have any more information because the storyteller “couldn’t hear too well because they were in Tyler’s room”, which led to him lamenting over what could have been when he said “I could have been an IC (www.insidecarolina.com) legend.”  Unfortunately, we will not be getting any further information out of the Chi O’s this weekend as they’ve asked their sorority sisters not to ask Kendall Marshall, Harrison Barnes and John Henson about their NBA plans at their formal this weekend.  This leads to another bit of speculation to ponder … why was Tyler Zeller not invited to the party?

Having said all of that, it’s my OPINION that Kyrie Irving will declare for the NBA draft, and that Plumlee, Barnes, Zeller and Henson will all return next season.  I will further clarify by stating that my OPINION is based entirely on the OPINIONS of others.  Cue the Duke fans freaking out about having Kyrie Irving for 11 games while Roy Williams was able to swindle money from Ty Lawson and Raymond Felton by hotboxing them into staying for three seasons, and cue the rosterbation from UNC fans looking through a lineup of 11 NBA players and planning their celebration of their 6th or 7th title (depending on which Tarheel fan you talk to).  As the decisions start being made public, two more hilarious items from this silly-season rear their ugly heads: the overnight change in player evaluation from fans, and the onslaught of early entry rule ideas.

So here’s how this is going to play out … if you ask a UNC fan today to evaluate Harrison Barnes, he’s a poor man’s Sean Elliot who needs to stay in college to become more than just a jumpshooter.  Duke fans think he’s a dynamic talent who should be a top 3 pick and would be absolutely foolish not to go take his place as the next Kevin Durant.  UNC fans feel like Kyrie Irving is the next Derrick Rose, while Duke fans have concerns about how Kyrie will hold up over an NBA season being so small and so out of shape from not playing.  If Barnes comes back, UNC fans are already polishing his Naismith Trophy while Duke fans are taking bets to see who from Roy Williams’ deep bench will transfer first.  Likewise if Irving returns, UNC fans become immediately concerned about Austin Rivers being able to get enough touches to make him happy while Duke fans are writing blog posts about the greatest backcourts in basketball history (coming to this site soon should Kyrie come back to Duke).  It’s the hilarious dance that fans do during this time of year.

And don’t get me started on the early entry opinions that will be thrown around ad nauseam following the conclusion of the championship game.  From the “baseball model” to the “hockey model” to the LeBron/Howard/Garnett model … ideas will be thrown around left and right.  Most of them not even feasible, all of them entirely uninformed and extremely biased.  The only fact you need to know about the early entry debate is this … it’s the NBA’s decision to make, and the decision will ALWAYS be what’s in the best interest of the NBA.  Talk all you’d like about how one-and-dones kill college basketball, or how “high school straight to the NBA” detracts young athletes from pursuing education.  It doesn’t matter.

Personally, I want to see as many kids stay for four years as possible because I like college basketball.  Specifically this season when the NBA is facing a likely work-stoppage, this could be college basketball’s time to shine.  If every underclassmen returned to school for the 2011-12 college season, you’d likely see three of the best teams ever assembled with the talent that Kentucky, UNC and Duke would have on their rosters.  The depth of talent would be legendary.  The worst part about college basketball these days is that we know the above scenario would never play out with all of those players returning.  The best part about college basketball these days … if it DID happen, it wouldn’t be shocking in the slightest if the championship was won by someone other than those three powerhouses.  So while you’re sitting on the edge of your seats over the next few weeks, living and dying with every rumor that gets posted, just remember the games still have to be played next year.  And for every ‘super-team’ that’s ever won a championship, there are two or three champions who came from nowhere to win.