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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey there, Duke fans. Boy, this is, it's not fun at the moment, but we're going to do it anyway. DBR podcast, DBR Bites, episode 159. Actually, on the one yesterday, I said the wrong number. I said 156. You know, can't even keep up with the numbers anymore. Jason Evans here.
Like I said, I was here with you almost exactly 24 hours ago talking about the departure of Darren Harris from the Blue Devils. Here to talk about another one of those. I'm joined by Donald Wine this time. Donald, you were at a ball game yesterday. Was that it?
Yeah, I had a friend in town. First of all, Jason, I leave for one episode and you can't count. We forget how to count on this episode. Come on now. No, but I was at a I have a friend in town from law school. We had made plans to go to the Nats game. So I was taking in taking a Nats game with her and a couple other friends. It was a fun time.
But now, as you mentioned, we get to talk about the not fun stuff of college basketball.
Yeah, and we're specifically referring to the fact that Nick Kemenia has announced that he will be transferring from Duke. I guess he has an official, he's entering the transfer portal. Is there a scenario where Duke lures him back? I think anytime a guy enters the portal, that's always possible. It seems pretty unlikely, doesn't tend to happen very often.
It tends to be kind of like a bunch of Carolina guys got in the portal, but they've got a new coach there and you could see a scenario where those guys get lured back. with a sort of a new situation, even though it's at the same school. You don't often see guys occasionally. Actually, Flory Bedunga last year, I think, entered the portal. They went back to Kansas.
Bottom line, I don't think anyone, there's not a lot of talk that Nick Hemenia has entered the portal with the intention of maybe coming back to Duke. So in all likelihoods,
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Chapter 2: What prompted Nik Khamenia's decision to enter the transfer portal?
Nick will be a one and done, so to speak, as a Blue Devil, that being his freshman year and then moving on elsewhere. I will go ahead and say that... though this one stings, far, far worse than the Darren Harris departure.
Not that it has anything to do with how beloved or anything like that, but just in terms of contributions and expected roles and the such, it's very, very easy to see where you would think that Nick was going to be a key player, probably not a starter, but sixth or seventh man, same kind of role, maybe slightly elevated from what he had this past season.
And you would go, dude, 20 plus minutes a game, you know, if not starting games, finishing a pretty fair number of them, why don't you want to stick around? Well, Donald, the reality is... For that kind of role, Duke probably wasn't going to pay him like a starter.
There are other schools, other power conference schools, big-name schools I've heard, who will pay him like a starter and who will offer him starter minutes. I don't think there's, barring injuries and the such, Donald, I don't think there's a scenario where you could reasonably project Nick Hemenia to be playing 30 minutes a game at Duke next year.
I think that at, for example, like a UCLA or a Gonzaga, who are two schools I've heard connected to him, That scenario exists. So I understand what he's done.
So I'm going to talk about it in two different segments. I'll save the money portion for just a minute. But let me first start with Nick Hamania, because as you mentioned, it's not I can't say any of these moves are surprising anymore because you can't really be shocked about a guy wishing to enter the transfer portal.
there's so many guys over half of college basketball is in the transfer portal right now. So you can't be surprised when someone does this, but I will say that given what we had thought about next year's team. it was probably surprising in the sense that there was easily a role for Nick Caminio on next year's team.
Whether, as you said, it's that fifth starter position that he was maybe aiming for, but really being first or second off the bench and getting 20 to 25 minutes of playing time, that seemed to be in the cards for next year's team. And it also was a guy, again, when we see some of these freshmen come in, we saw the growth of Nick and Minnie throughout the year.
And I think that's where it's a little sad for Duke fans because we've seen that growth. And we've seen... I mean, imagine a sophomore year, Nick and Minnie in a Duke uniform with the growth that he had throughout his freshman year. It's something that everyone could easily see. And I think that's where... it's a little bit sad because you want to see that live out in a Duke uniform.
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Chapter 3: How do the hosts feel about the impact of Nik's departure on Duke's basketball team?
Really good rebounder. Remember the game in the ACC tournament against Clemson? Like, he was like one of Duke's top couple players on the floor that day. had 14 points, hit three three-pointers, had six rebounds, played 31 minutes against Clemson. The very next game against Virginia in the ACC championship game, he plays 32 minutes, had nine points against six rebounds.
Like, big role for this guy. So it's easy to look at what he did and go, oh, I can project a little more, a little more from him. And by the way, I think the schools that are going to pursue him You know, again, we're talking about was, you know, probably sixth man, seventh man for Duke next year, probably sixth man, actually.
These other schools are going to talk to Nick about, we want to bring you in and be one of our top two players. I absolutely think my bet is that we will hear Nick's from the West Coast. My bet is he's going to go back to the West Coast. It's hard to be really, really far apart from your family. And it's a long way to go East Coast from West Coast. So my bet is he goes back to the West Coast.
UCLA is already talking about like, we're going to bring in Nick Kemenia. And I've read an article. UCLA is like, we want to bring in Nick Kemenia to help turn around this program and return us to national relevance. I mean, that's a huge role. And that's not a role he would have gotten at Duke.
Well, look, everything you just said is great. I think the hustle points, those hustle moments, he had a lot of those this year. He didn't have to, again, you mentioned the uses rate. I wasn't necessarily concerned about that because we weren't asking him to do a lot, but what he was providing was stuff that can't be
You know, statable, those hustle points, diving for loose rebounds, getting momentum plays. Sometimes it was knocking the ball off of somebody else out of bound to give us the ball and then giving us, you know, a let's go and just kind of, you know, getting the crowd going. He had a lot of those moments where.
you said, Hey, you know, Nick had two points, five, you know, two points, a few rebounds, a couple of assists, but man, did he affect the game in a positive way with a plus 10, right? Like the, you had a few of those types of games. Now let me talk about the money part of things.
Cause I know you and Scott talked a little bit about it yesterday with just the ever changing landscape of college basketball. Now, the coaching carousel has a lot to do with this and money is talking more this off season than ever. And it's for one reason in my mind, or at least one, one of the big reasons of my mind is,
If you remember every coach that's been hired by all these different schools from Providence to UNC, they all have basically, there have been reports of the NIL budget guarantees that have come out with that. Hey, we got this coach because we're going to give them, you know, $10 million, $15 million. A lot of it was between 15 and $20 million for NIL budgets. Jason, let me tell you this.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the NCAA's proposed eligibility rule changes?
Right now, you mentioned yesterday, everybody's a free agent. Over half of all D1 players are in the portal right now. We're going to talk about a ruling or at least a proposed new regulation that the NCAA is considering that could also affect this.
But teams are paying heavily for the players that they want to try and land now because what they don't want to have is later on when the store starts emptying out and they have this gift card left, they're not going to go back to those boosters and say, oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't spend it. They're trying to use it to buy every ounce of that money.
And you spent all that money on getting these guys. So that is where a new committee comes in. Duke may have had a budget, but these other schools have not necessarily have bigger budgets, but they're willing to spend more money and guarantee minutes and all these things, things that Duke never really has done. Obviously, the money part is one thing.
But Duke has a philosophy that everyone comes to compete. Almost everybody is walking in saying, I'm here to compete. I haven't been guaranteed a starter's role. I haven't been guaranteed minutes. Now, sure, it works out where you're building around certain players, but that's not part of the package.
where some of these schools are saying, we'll give you 30 minutes, we'll give you a starting role, we're going to give you X million dollars. And that's a hard thing for players to turn down. So we're going to start to see some wild numbers come out. Remember last year, AJ DeBensa, it was reportedly he was getting what, between five and seven million dollars, depending on who you talk to. Yeah.
Five million dollars is going to be, and if you think about college football, Darian Mensah made $4 million, and then this year, guess what? The going rate was six for most of those quarterbacks. Five is going to be the going rate for a lot of these top guys, which means that everyone else is getting two or three.
You know, those guys that are expected to be starters but not necessarily role players.
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Chapter 5: How might the new eligibility rules benefit players like Maliq Brown?
They're going to be getting two to three, which is probably higher than what you know, a team like Duke would pay for somebody who's going to be first or second off the bench. So it's becoming a numbers game in a way that everyone just needs to kind of put in their mind that, as you said, Jason, loyalty is not a part of that contract ever.
Loyalty is kind of gone by the wayside, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. That is just what this is.
people are just like players are loyal to the school for a year the school is loyal to them for a year except now it's more transactional in the form of a contract yeah i i want to i want to say something and i i i alluded to this a little bit over the past couple episodes but i want i know that there are a lot of people out there a lot of duke fans
are super upset and like you know why are these guys leaving and why can't we have continuity i mentioned this yesterday folks there's no loyalty left in the sport duke got in my opinion extraordinarily i don't want lucky's the wrong word but it it took a lot last year at this time for duke to retain as many guys as we did
bringing back Pat and Isaiah and Darren, you know, on and on Emily and Caleb. I mean, like that was a huge core to bring back to the team. That's it's just, that's just not college basketball anymore. It's not the way the sport works at this point. And, and when I talk about loyalty, I'm not talking about players to teams or teams to players. I'm talking about both.
There's just not as much of it as there used to be. And we have to get used to, as I said, everyone's a free agent. I think when all is said and done, easily over half the players in college basketball will be in the portal. It's already happened.
I already said it's over half already in the portal. Jason, that's not counting the guys who haven't entered the portal that are clearly getting calls from other teams like, if you enter the portal, we'll give you this.
I mean, I think retaining three or four guys is going to become a huge cause for celebration and a surprise and not what happens all the time, especially at a big-time program like Duke. And we just... I know all of you out there, I know it's not what you want. You want four-year guys, you want to see guys develop over time.
You long, you long for Grayson Allen, you know, and Quinn Cook and Zubek. And we could go on and on. And I'm not even going back, you know, to the 80s, 90s. I'm just going back like 10 years or so.
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Chapter 6: What factors are influencing players' decisions to leave or stay at Duke?
Emile Jefferson, you know? We all long for it. It doesn't exist anymore. And I'm sorry. I hate to be the one to break the news, but it just doesn't.
Yeah, I think Scott said it best, though. We as a fan base don't necessarily know what we want. Let me first start with this. People always saying, oh, I hate that these guys are leaving. In the case of Duke, it may be they're leaving because the coach is saying, hey, here's where I see your role for next year. Take that. Think on it. And they go, that role is not for me.
There are other schools where they're literally saying, get out. There are coaches who are pushing players out the door and saying, not like coaxing. They're like, we don't need you next year. Go hit the portal. We're going to bring in somebody else. But you don't have a role here next year. Go to the portal. They're doing it forcefully.
And so I think people need to be careful when they say, I hate all these kids are leaving because it's not just the players. As you mentioned, it is a two-way street in a lot of situations. I will also say that, again, Scott said it a little bit yesterday, but we don't know what we really want.
As college basketball fans, everyone wants a team that's going to compete for a national championship, that's going to get the top recruits, that's going to get all the best portal players, and that none of them are going to leave or go to the draft. That is never going to happen. You cannot assume that the top guys are going to stay four years.
You also can't assume that the lower guys are going to stay all four years. Case in point, Jason, look eight miles down the road. Last year, they spent $20 million, reportedly, on a roster that had Caleb Wilson, Henry Visar, and a bunch of people that everyone was like, really? You spent that much money on those guys?
And what they were trying to say is they wanted to gain some continuity and give Hubert Davis a base. Well, guess what? Flash a year later, Hubert Davis is gone, and so are all of those players. And all those players got out in the first round of the NCAA tournament, and everybody clowned them. So now what are they doing?
They're spending extra money to bring in an NBA coach, and they're probably going to spend even more money to try and get him a top dollar roster. That is what all of these colleges are trying to do. Everyone wants a winner. And to do that, you have to go out and spend money. And sometimes you have to, for some of these players, you got to tell them, hey, this is what your role is next year.
I know you don't like it, but that's what we see right now. Let me know what you're thinking. And the player says, Hey coach, appreciate you, but I feel like I want to get more minutes. And if I can't get them here, I need to, I need to look elsewhere. That's just how this is working, but please do not make it just about the players. This is as Jason, as you said, it's a two way street.
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