COMMENTARY

By Mike DeCourcy

updated 4:27 p.m. ET Oct. 14, 2004

This will not be the last phone call from above. You can count on that. Teams in the NBA are in the business of competing, so none is likely to view the Los Angeles Lakers' failure to lure Mike Krzyzewski away from college coaching as an impediment to their own designs.

But this is the last time Duke fans will find themselves agonizing over the possibility. Other calls will come, and they will quietly be turned away. If the Lakers couldn't land Krzyzewski in 2004, and if the Boston Celtics couldn't do it in 1990, there won't be a franchise with the gravitas to convince him to leave college coaching for the pros.

He will retire, when he does, from Duke.

Which, if you think about it, gives Blue Devils fans something else to fear.

He is 57. That means Krzyzewski will last at least a few more years. Using the typical retirement age as a measure, Devils fans are good until 2012. By Joe Paterno standards, they're safe until 2024. The class that will graduate from Duke that year has yet to be born, which means it's safe to say that none of them has filed for early entry.

So college basketball is better today than it would have been had Krzyzewski chosen to depart. But this did not save the game, and the game did not need saving.

That Krzyzewski would consider the Lakers' offer so soon after the NBA Draft was viewed by many as more evidence that the leakage of college underclassmen (and high school prospects) to the league was creating a calamity in NCAA basketball.

It never was the case. It happens the Lakers are looking for a coach now, and that star Kobe Bryant wanted Krzyzewski, and that the franchise had the wherewithal to offer a $40 million deal as an incentive.

Because if Coach K's possible departure indicated a crisis, then his decision to stay would mean there are no problems at all. And that's certainly not true. More coaches need to pay closer attention to the rules. More prospects need to be convinced of the value of college basketball training in the pursuit of an NBA career. Of the past 20 top-10 picks in the NBA Draft, 16 were U.S. collegians with a combined average of 2.8 years experience. So it's worth something, probably millions. Certainly the NCAA could do a better job presenting that message, instead of ceding complete control of the issue to agents and NBA teams.

Duke is not in crisis, either. The Blue Devils' loss of forward Luol Deng after one season and point guard recruit Shaun Livingston before he enrolled damaged their pursuit of another Final Four, but didn't end it.

The Devils still will start four McDonald's All-Americans. They will start two legitimate big men, Shelden Williams and Shavlik Randolph, which is rare among college teams. They have two excellent 3-point shooters, J.J. Redick and Daniel Ewing, on the wings. They don't have much depth, but save for the case of injury, Krzyzewski lately has employed an extremely tight rotation.

If he can get this next Duke team into the Final Four, it will be the fourth time in seven years. It will be the 11th time under Krzyzewski, tying him with North Carolina's Dean Smith and leaving him one short of career leader John Wooden. Krzyzewski needs only two more tournament wins to break Smith's career record in that category.

With an average of 31 victories over the past seven years, Krzyzewski is on pace to match Smith's record for career wins (879) in just six more seasons. He'd be 63 then. Of course, he'll probably need to push on past that number and match whatever standard his mentor, Bob Knight, ultimately establishes. But he'll be young enough to try.

That's what Krzyzewski has to prove. Like any other coach, he won't admit these numbers matter. Perhaps they don't. But the accounting is part of life. You want to reach age 80 because the alternative seems less appealing.

The one aspect of the three-day debate about Krzyzewski's decision that never made any sense involved whether he had anything left to prove with the Blue Devils. Of course he doesn't. But he didn't have anything to prove, either, before he led the 2001 team to the national championship. He did it because he enjoyed the process, the competition, the pursuit.

The challenge has not abated. In fact, it may have escalated. Just as it placed one final stamp of greatness on Wooden to claim a final title without a Walton or Alcindor, Krzyzewski can demonstrate his resiliency in his current circumstance.

Two lottery picks are gone? OK. He's lost more in other years and returned with championship-level teams. He'll be back to try again this autumn.

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