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The responses are all more reactionary than anything that I said.
Relax.
>grant was the dude, and i agree that he woulda been better >than all of them had he not hit the injuries. but grant is a >different case. dude not only had a stable background, but he >had an athletic pedigree as his father was an elite >professional athlete (calvin hill, that came from the hood in >baltimore and played for the cowboys in the nfl). it would be >more apt to draw a comparison between grant hill as the >prototype for kobe (father joe jellybean bryant was a solid >baller for the sixers back in the day, yadda yadda).
I'm not using Grant Hill to make the entire argument, and don't have to, since he was the 3rd or 4th best player on the Duke team who took down mighty UNLV. I don't need Grant Hill.
Christian Laettner and Hurley were the ones pissing all over UNLV. Grant Hill was basically Tayshaun Prince.
The Grant Hill led team lost to Nolan's Razorbacks in 94. (He essentially got them there by himself).
I'm using Grant Hill to kick off the argument, because it is quite ironic that Duke's narrative gets lost in all of this, when its clearly more interesting than either UNLV or Michigan's narrative. K has never been guilty of paying players, breaking rules, which is another reason he recruits certain kids. The image of the program is part of Duke's mystique -- 20 years later, UNLV is lucky to still have their 1990 title, and the Fab 5 era has been erased from memory because the program was dirty.
Grant Hill is just an additional point of hilarity:
K recruited an "uncle tom,(and even I believed this)" who was faster, more athletic, better NBA players, and more influential in the black community than the inner city kids with gold teeth and shit.
Its just ironic.
While the Fab 5 were getting money from boosters, Duke kids were going to class, learning how to make millions outside of basketball (Brian Davis, etc), and beating the shit out of these dirty programs.
I'm saying that any SELF RESPECTING BLACK MAN should acknowledge DUKE because it teaches the values that we need in BLACK KIDS. And before you use the "background" argument, let's consider that the only poor kids in the Fab 5 were Jalen and Juwon. Like someone just pointed out, Chris was middle class and Jimmy King/Ray Jackson were from Texas Suburbs. Chris was absolutely Duke material. He's actually extremely intelligent and insightful.
>making that comparison about grant is like comparing peyton >(or bum ass eli) to some other qb prospect. athleticism, >skill, etc., is gonna be the luck of the draw, but how do you >account for polish and a lifetime of grooming in the >intangibles between the mannings and some cat who came up >being just better than everybody else, but may not have >necessarily gotten the same quality of instruction?
Webber's upbringing wasn't substantially different than a lot of Duke kids.
If anything, he was wildly out of place in the Fab 5, and was socially awkward and uncomfortable. He just happened to be a great player. When you think of the Fab 5, you really think of Jalen Rose. He was the leader.
>now if you want to compare duke stylistically versus the more >niggerish (you're words) teams, what is novel about that? ncaa >been doing that since waaay back in the day. that's not a >novel argument.
That's what is ironic: Duke's style isn't even any less "niggerish." They run a mean, aggressive, man-on-man fuck you defense. Its one of the gullier things in all of sports.
Coach K's nickname is "LOL? Zone? Nigga, STFU."
Another irony.
>ever since dean smith was playing stall ball to keep the game >manageable against more athletic squads this been the deal.
Its different, though.
>if you ARE gonna contrast styles, however, your argument would >be incomplete without looking at how duke's aura affects their >games *ahem* REFS *ahem*, versus how other squads' affects >theirs.
Ref-blaming. This is cute. No bad argument is complete without ref-blaming.
>there was another overwhelmingly white small university known >for academic excellence who came out of nowhere to dominate an >era of bball under a disciplinarian coach who was SERIOUS >about the morality and life preparation of his student >athletes. but they didn't get the calls. and that school was >called georgetown.
I love John Thompson. John Thompson didn't beat UNLV, though. K did. And Ewing, Mourning, and Mutumbo are each more talented than any big man in Duke history.
>if you wanna compare duke and michigan, i don't know of ANYONE >who would say fisher was a better coach than k. nor tark over >k. (although i personally saw tarkanian outcoach the hell >outta lefty driesell's ass w/ that same class unlv squad when >maryland had len bias and a buncha other cats, but NO >coaching).
I already made that argument. The entire Duke aura is about K.
>so fab 5 > duke in talent. < duke in polish. << duke in >coaching <<< duke in refs/calls and all that shit = L for >michigan != some kinda triumph yt-controlled ni&&as over hip >hop ni&&as or whatever other reactionist type shit you tryna >posit.
I don't care what equation we use.
I'm saying that we (me included) are all hyped to watch 2 documentaries about "renegade basketball teams who changed the game forever."
When I sit and think about it, neither story is as interesting as the team who beat both: Coach K's Duke Blue Devils. Their team was far more revolutionary than either of those teams.
The rebellious teenager and/or black militant in all of us makes us grin ear-to-ear watching these documentaries, but the gulliest aspect has nothing to do with UNLV or Michigan.
The gulliest aspect of that entire era was the team of well-dressed, well-spoken, educated, responsible kids who played nasty man-to-man defense, would bust a jumper in your eyeball, played hard for 48 minutes, and won more than either "renegade" team.
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