I'd say the top Duke players right now are Elton Brand and Corey Maggette (Maggette had a nice season last year). Battier had a good rookie season but a really lame sophmore campain (9.7 pts, 4.4 reb). Battier's numbers were down across the board expect for shooting percentages. I wouldn't expect a big career out of Battier. I know people always talk about Duke never producing good pros, I was just wondering if people will start talking about the unusual luck surrounding Dukies. As far as Ferry, sure he's been in the league for 13 years but he's never been close to what was expected. For comparison, think of all the pros that came out of UNC during that period. Jordan, Worthy, Perkins, Daugherty, Kenny Smith, Vince Carter, Antwan Jamison, Stackhouse, Rasheed, George Lynch, and Rick Fox. Maybe the comparison with UNC is unfair, but when you think about how even the two schools have been at the college level, it's strange that there is such disparity at the pro level.
Disparity is not really that strange. Dean Smith was a great guy, great recruiter, but only a so-so game coach. Coach K is the best in the business at getting college kids to play at a championship level.
Except Duke was getting just as many McDonalds All American's (i.e. good recruits)
Also, until recently, UNC encouraged kids to go pro, whereas it seemed to be tradition for Dukies to stick around through graduation. No telling how many more titles UNC would have if Jordan, Wallace, Stack, et. all played all four years the way Hurly, Hill, Laetner and company did.
CNNSI has a column about the Duke Curse that rehashes various things raised here and adds some new analysis.
