OH WOW: Why Duke players stink it up in the NBA. In Off The Glass, by Paul Forrester, on SI:

Of the two Dookies you can legitimately term stars, Elton Brand has already been traded once (whether you agree or not, at least one NBA GM didn't think Brand was a primary building block), and Grant Hill's career is in jeopardy far before his life as an athlete should be over.

Ironically, the Blue Devil with, perhaps, the most ability, Corey Maggette, is one of the few that coach Mike Krzyzewski did not give his blessing to, thanks to Maggette's early departure from Durham. While the fact that so many Blue Devils make it to the NBA may be something to crow about, the harsh reality is that for a program that recruits so many high-school All-Americans and wins so much, Duke does a rotten job of turning out top-notch NBA players. OTG won't claim to know the cause but here are some possible reasons.

More:

The Mirage of Talent: The fact that Duke plays in so many big games -- and on national TV -- gives its players a sheen of quality that exists only as long as Mike Krzyzewski is coaching those players. Shane Battier won the Naismith and the Wooden awards by scoring 19.9 ppg, grabbing 7.3 rpg and shooting 47 percent from the field during his final season at Duke. Two years later, it's clear that Battier's trophies won't have any company on his mantle soon, what with his 9.3 ppg and 4.5 rpg.

As I said before, it isn't as if the Duke boys don't have NBA skills; they just don't have NBA skills equal to the expectations we fans, and many a general manager, place on them. Trajan Langdon could have been a perfectly serviceable two-guard off the bench. Instead, he's the No. 11 pick in the first round and his inability to do much but shoot is glaringly apparent against other NBA starters. OTG wonders if Atlanta regrets selecting Roshown McLeod with the 12th overall selection in the 1998 NBA Draft before later draftees Ricky Davis, Rashard Lewis and Cuttino Mobley.

And the finale:

The Blue Devil Mystique: While Duke may not be producing future NBA All-Stars each year, no other school is consistently churning them out, either. Steve Francis may have come from Maryland, but so did Joe Smith. Baron Davis was a fabulous choice out of UCLA, quite unlike Jerome Moiso a year later. Still, for the constant flow of high school luminaries Duke receives, very few develop into the pro stars they seem to have the talent to become. Is Krzyzewski's system to blame? Dean Smith had a pretty rigid system in Chapel Hill and still managed to turn out Michael Jordan, Rasheed Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse. Whatever the reason, talented players don't come out of Duke the same way they came in.

Heh.