Do any of you remember the last years of Dean Smith’s tenure at UNC. The only folks who could stomach him were Carolina fans. No One else liked him at all. He was a know-it-all ass. But guess what. He really didn’t care what everyone else thought as long as he did things in what he considered the proper way. I sure that Coach K doesn’t care either.

It’s just a real shame that in this day and time, everyone feel obilgated to put down successful folks instead of giving them credit when they deserve it. Ask Jerry Colangelo if Coach K had anything to do with the team winning the Gold. Ask Kobe, Wade and Labron if Coach K did a good job. That’s the only opinions that make any difference.

2) No, Coach K did not have time to do a book after 2006. He was busy with his three year commitment to helping Team USA return to the top of the international basketball word.

3) Under Coach K, Team USA lost exactly one game in three years of play.

4) Where and when did Coach K blame his players for the loss to Greece, Adrian?

5) Adrian says college coaches want the credit when it goes well, but none of the blame when things go wrong. But he is obviously projecting. What he wants to do is give no credit to Coach K when things go well and all of the blame to him whenever things go wrong. When did Coach K shirk blame for a Team USA loss or take credit for a Team USA victory? Coach K’s own quotes that Adrian supplied show him crediting his players.

6) As for the supposed lack of correlation between a Duke apprenticeship and NBA success, how many college programs currently have a better group of NBA alumni than Brand, Boozer, Deng, Battier, Hill, Dunleavy, Maggette, Duhon, Williams, Redick, Jones, Randolph and McRoberts?

7) Finally, why did Kobe Bryant want Coach K to coach the Lakers, Adrian?

Nor does he deserve credit for honestly expressing nonsensical opinions like Hill and Brand would be NBA stars regardless of what college they attended. Not only is that baseless speculation, but I wonder what Brand and Hill would say if asked if their time at Duke helped them succeed. In any event, that same logic (and i use that term loosely) could be applied to just about every NBA star — each would have had NBA success regardless of which college they attended.

That interview is filled with unsubstantiated, thoughtless, off-the-cuff remarks cloaked as the opinions of a supposed professional who cannot refuse an opportunity to impose his personal biases on readers.

A little perspective might be in order though: this was an informal interview that he was nice enough to do with a blog. Also, Adrian is a professional journalist who is paid to express his opinions on basketball, and sometimes that means giving criticism.

You may not agree with his opinion, but you have to at least give him credit for being honest about his views on this.

Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski was also full of praise for the Europeans.

“Obviously the Greek team and their coaching staff did an amazing job today,” he said.

“Their offense beat our defense, and I take responsibility for that. We win and lose together, but in a loss a coach needs to take more responsibility than anyone else.”

-Something tells me that K’s book will include a pretty healthy section on the World’s in 2006. He has said that losing that tournament made it possible to win this one. I really admire Wojnarowski as a writer/journalist and am surprised that his research didn’t include transcripts of every post game press conference for Team USA where K took the blame every time. In addition, he didn’t discuss the Greek players by name because he didn’t want to insult them by mispronouncing them. That whole “he didn’t know the Greek players” story is so old, tired and false yet it keeps coming back. Besides, that game was the equivalent of Villanova/Georgetown in 85, Greece played perfect and the USA still almost won. Everyone talks about our inability to adjust to a basic pick and roll. When perfectly executed, it’s an unstoppable play, especially when the guys around the horn are dropping bank shot 3 pointers. That game was the equivalent of the priest in Caddyshack gunning for the course record in the driving rain – a divine performance.

-K’s strength is not Xs and Os…it’s motivation, teaching personal responsibility/accountability, and getting max effort out of his teams. I’m not saying he’s not strong on Xs and Os, but he’s no Pete Carrill. From what I heard from the players, he was widely praised for the things I mentioned above. That’s what the team needed, and he delivered it. Again, he never took the credit and always took the blame – read the post game press conference transcripts. When he talks, in interviews, about the team not being ready in 2006, he includes himself.

-Larry Brown and George Karl take too much of a beating for what happened in 2002 and 2004. While Brown especially didn’t help the situation by using the press to call players out, both were handed ad hoc rosters not stocked with A list talent. If they’d had the same commitment and system that K had to work with, I think they’d have had the chance to do as well.

Let’s go by what the players said about Coach K and ignore what everyone else said. All I know is that in the comments I read, they seemed to really enjoy him….even Chris Paul who had a poor initial relationship with him stemming from heated on court rivalry between Wake and Duke.