If You Didn’t Understand Before Why Everybody Hates Duke, You Will Now

The other day, Duke uber-stud Kyrie Irving announced that he is leaving the hallowed halls in Durham for the Franklin-green pastures of the NBA. Of course, this led some Coach-K-turd-swallowing dickface at The Chronicle (Dukes’ campus newspaper) to pen what has to be the purest, most uncut essence of what every self-respecting person in America knows about Duke. In short, Duke is merely a repository for the prototypical pompous, pain-in-the-ass, over-privileged white kid whose parents’ money has kept him insulated from reality to such a point that he has no idea how much real people hate him.

For those of you who don’t yet know what an asshole factory Duke really is, we here at Dubsism will breakdown this open letter from The Chronicle so that you can understand that which the rest of us already know.

Dear Kyrie,

Go pro.

Seriously. Declare for the NBA draft, hire an agent, pick out a nice suit and start practicing to look surprised when your name is one of the first to be called by Commissioner David Stern in June.

I mean, what’s there to lose?

Sure, some of the Cameron Crazies will implore you to consider your legacy as a Blue Devil, to remember the history of the great Duke players before you who went on to successful NBA careers. They’ll probably name drop the likes of Carlos Boozer, Grant Hill and Shane Battier, all guys who won NCAA titles before noteworthy careers in the pros (in spite of playing three seasons or more under one of basketball’s greatest coaches). Don’t follow in the footsteps of William Avery, you’ll be warned; he made the wise decision to leave Duke after his sophomore year, and use the NBA as a stepping stone to an illustrious career in Europe. Don’t let those comparisons get you down, though, even if Avery did get the privilege of watching from the sidelines as his former college teammates celebrated a national championship.

Plus, sticking around and winning a fifth national title for the Blue Devils is just selfish, even if you haven’t ever won one yourself. Think about it: Cameron is already full of national championship banners, and adding one of your own would ruin the symmetry in the rafters. Sure, you’ll give up your chance to be remembered as one of Duke’s all-time greatest basketball players, but I bet if you asked Christian Laettner, he would tell you that fans don’t remember collegiate legacies anyway. Well, at least until he tries to visit Kentucky, where his likeness is still routinely burned in effigy on the anniversary of “The Shot.”

If you haven’t already figured out what a miserable little shitbag the author is, let me show you the dead-giveaways. First of all, he doesn’t even wait three sentences before he invokes the most-bile-spewing thing about Dukies, that so-called bullshit “legacy as a Blue Devil.”  Sure, he cherry-picks William Avery because he left Duke early, and because he was considered to be a “draft bust.” I say he cherry-picks because he doesn’t mention other Dukies who split town ahead of schedule. Where’s the hate for Luol Deng? Where’s the hate for Avery’s teammates like Elton Brand and Corey Maggette? Oh, that’s right, leaving Duke clearly wasn’t a mistake for those guys.

As long as we are talking about “the Blue Devil legacy,” what about the guys who stayed for all four years and it didn’t help them. How about Avery’s teammate Trajan Langdon? What good did Duke do him? If you go with this author’s logic, Avery would not have ended up hooping in Europe had he stayed at Duke. Langdon did, and where is he now? Playing for CSKA Moscow.

Then, there’s the whole Laettner thing. See that picture above? Know how I found about that picture. I was listening to the Dan Patrick Show a few weeks ago and Laettner himself pointed out the existence of these shirts in Kentucky. I understand you were aiming for satire in that “Laettner doesn’t think collegiate legacies matter” quip, but getting quality satire out of a Chronicle writer is like getting great NBA talent out of a Dukie…we’ll come back to that point in a bit.

And if you’re still not convinced, remember that if you go pro, you might not even have to play next year! Who really wants to play, anyway? Sure, you won’t get paid any of that major contract that you’d sign as a top draft pick, but at least you won’t have to endure the grind of professional sports. Some of those same haters from before will probably call it a wasted season, as Europe will probably be the only place to play in the interim, but that won’t affect your NBA salary. As long as the rookie salary structure stays the same, that is.

Plus, just think of the NBA franchises you could possibly play for! While the NBA Draft lottery hasn’t happened yet, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the frontrunners after enduring an NBA-record 26-game losing streak this season. With the Cavs, your most talented teammate would be center Anderson Varejao, the real-life equivalent of Sideshow Bob, whose curly locks will be a comedic distraction from his lack of on-court ability. Trust me, you’ll need to actively search for reasons to smile playing on the perimeter with an overweight Baron Davis, who was shipped out of Los Angeles because he was so out of shape that his owner started heckling him.

Usually, there’s a fine line between satire and being a douche-nozzle, but this guy blew right through it. If I’m a guy extolling the virtues of being a Dukie, the last thing I want to get into is picking on guys who aren’t great NBA players, since nobody has produced more big-name, small-game players than Duke has. Doubt that? Check out this list of mediocrity:

• Grant Hill
• Luol Deng
• Elton Brand
• Shane Battier
• Carlos Boozer
• Chris Duhon
• Mike Dunleavy
• Dahntay Jones
• Corey Maggette
• Shavlik Randolph
• JJ Redick
• Shelden Williams
• Alaa Abdelnaby
• Mark Alarie
• William Avery
• Gene Banks
• Chris Carrawell
• Johnny Dawkins
• Brian Davis
• Kenny Dennard
• Daniel Ewing
• Danny Ferry
• Mike Gminski
• Dave Henderson
• Nick Horvath
• Bobby Hurley
• Nate James
• Christian Laettner
• Antonio Lang
• Trajan Langdon
• Roshown Mcleod
• Lee Melchionni
• Tony Moore
• Martin Nessley
• Greg Newton
• Cherokee Parks
• Ricky Price
• Casey Sanders
• Vince Taylor
• Jay Williams

It would be easier to mention the guys on that list that didn’t suck in the NBA, because there’s about six of them at the most.

Or you could end up in Toronto, affectionately dubbed years ago The City Where Basketball was Single-Handedly Killed by Vince Carter. In fact, the Raptors’ website is already looking forward to your debut season, advertising the “lowest season seat prices ever” in 2011-12. Playing for the Sacramento Kings is another option, though I hear the franchise is still preoccupied with getting their Tim Donaghy-scandalized 2003 Western Conference title back from the Lakers.

You’re really going to tell me that being in some working-class, southern shit-hole like Durham is better than pretty much anywhere in the NBA? Granted, the NBA plays in some pretty rotten cities like Chicago, Detroit, and (for now) New Orleans, but even those places have more to offer than Skeeter’s Bait Hut and the Annual Lacrosse Rape-o-Rama. Durham is know as the “Medicine City,” largely because if you were a physician intending to give the state of North Carolina an enema, Durham is where you would place the nozzle.

That’s all there is to consider. Rest assured, you’ll never regret leaving Duke after just one year, never wonder what might have been if you stuck around to play with the nation’s No. 2-ranked recruiting class, which by the way includes your longtime friend and teammate Austin Rivers. It’s really a no-brainer.

I look forward to your announcement, even if you ignore my advice and stay in school, er, I mean, go pro.

Sincerely,

Chris Cusack

I almost don’t know where to start with a response to that last bit. There’s so much stupidity in those last few sentences reading them was like cutting into an onion of stupidity and the stupid fumes burnt out my eyes. It’s almost as if you don’t understand that guys who play professional basketball, even if only in Europe GET PAID. It’s bad enough you expect these guys to be grateful for being in an unflushed toilet like Durham, it’s bad enough to subject real basketball talent to a career-destroyer like Mike Krzyzewski (seriously, where are the hoardes of Hall-of-Famers that were coached by “one of basketball’s greatest coaches?”), and it’s bad enough that they have to live through all this shit under the auspices of a bunch of completely self-absorbed, sniveling little ass-wipes like you, Mr. Cusack. To top it all off, you then spew this kind of shit when they decide it is time to head for greener pastures.

The Krzyzewski Model - only good in the ACC.

I’m guessing that you are at Duke preparing for a career as some sort of journalist. If I’m correct, eventually you will have learned what you can at Duke, and set off to ply your trade out in the non-Duke world. So, why is it such a big problem for you that some basketball player does the same thing? Is it because a) you are a self-centered hypocrite for whom other people only exist to serve your whims b) you believe basketball players exist solely for your entertainment and they should be grateful for even being allowed into your Dukie ivory tower c) you view athletes as intellectually inferior and you are pissed off because a guy like Irving will make more money on one signature than you ever will in your entire life or d) all of the above.

Now for the really stupid part. Irving isn’t the first guy to leave early and get this kind of bullshit out the Dukies; he won’t be the last. But if you folks at Duke don’t understand that this attitude is part of the reason why players leave, eventually they will simply not come to Duke in the first place. Your sainted Coach K is in his mid-60’s; whether you want to admit it or not, his best days are likely behind him. This means your incredibly petulant attitude which is currently just really fucking annoying will sooner than you think become a serious detriment to recruiting. Even now, a Duke diploma is only useful if you intend to go to law school; fora  basketball player it might as well be printed on a roll.

The beauty is even a dullard like you, Mr. Cusack,  figured out right away you had stepped in it big time, judging by this follow-up posted on The Chronicle’s website mere hours later.

Readers:

I’d like to respond personally to some of the claims made about my column today.

“Because I thought it was totally cool when my inbox had 600 e-mails in it instead of the normal 2, until I realized that all 600 of them threatened to break all my fingers.”

First, I sincerely apologize to everyone who was offended by its content; it was my intention to be satirical, not hateful. My original intent was simply to show that there are valid reasons to stay in college in an admittedly less-than-original format, through the caricatured mind of a Duke fan, not to imply that Kyrie Irving ‘owes’ Duke students another year, or anything of the sort.

I’ve already made mention of the fact that Cusack simply isn’t a talented enough writer to pull of satire. He should probably stick to things like Hallmark cards and DMV manuals, because even his attempt at an apology is horrible. First, he tries to lay the blame for his bullshit on the “less-than-original” format, then he tells all his readers he was mocking THEM! In a really fucked up way it makes sense, because the only people who are dumb enough to believe he doesn’t think Kyrie Irving owes something to dumb Duke fans are dumb Duke fans.

Second, I regret deeply that this column was interpreted as having racial undertones. That was, of course, not my intention: I would have written this article about any potential one-and-done player, especially one as talented as Irving.

I have to be fair here, the only people who saw anything racist in this are the people who believe saying anything about a black person is racist. Frankly, there was about as much racism in this piece as there was satire.

Third, there is nothing I would enjoy more than to see Irving achieve success wherever he plays. I did not mean to imply that he should put off a huge NBA contract to satisfy Duke students and fans, nor insinuate that in leaving for the pros he would forfeit what he has already accomplished in Durham. I simply intended to highlight some of the reasons for staying, with a little bit of humor thrown in. His decision should be based only on what is best for him and his family, not the opinion of this writer.

Read that last paragraph and say it back to yourself, except in the complete opposite,  and you will get a hefty dose of the truth. He would love to see Irving snap a femur in his first NBA game and never recover. He firmly believes Irving’s place is at Duke providing entertainment to him and the rest of the Cameron Cuntfaces.

At the end of the day, some idiot took it upon himself to speak for the attitude that runs just under the surface at Duke, and then when he got called on it, he made up some bullshit excuses to hide behind.  He says his intention was to show “there are valid reasons to stay in college…through the caricatured mind of a Duke fan.”  It is really important to note that Cusack never denies these attitudes exist amongst the Dukies, in fact you can tell he wrote that piece fulling intending to stroll the campus getting a never-ending series of “high-fives” for reminding that basketball player where his place is.

In other words, he showed us all what an astonishing lack of character it takes to be a Duke fan, therefore reminding us all why hating Duke should be an American birthright.  For that, Mr. Cusack, we all owe you a tip of our collective caps.

About J-Dub

What your view of sports would be if you had too many concussions

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