Are Duke Players Annually the Most Disappointing NBA Prospects?

Christian Laetner, Bobby Hurley, Cherokee Parks, J. J. Reddick, Sheldon Williams... Somebody that is a die hard college basketball fan from the past 20 years has probably heard of all of these players. Somebody that only watches the NBA won't be real familiar with these players. Why is this the case? Because all of the names above are Duke players that were celebrated in college but never panned out, or in the case of Reddick and Williams haven't panned out yet. Because of these players Duke has gotten a bad reputation for not being able to produce NBA talents and for all their players being over hyped but let me read off a few more names... Sean May, Marvin Williams, Charlie Villanueva, Channing Frye, Drew Gooden...

Let's put this whole "Duke players are over hyped when they go to the NBA" nonsense to rest. The truth is college basketball players are over hyped when they go to the NBA. Any college basketball player that plays for a major college is going to be overrated going into the NBA.

It's not just Duke players. It's North Carolina players too. What happened to that North Carolina team that had four lottery picks? Isn't the NBA supposed to be dominated by Tarheels by now? What happened to the Kirk Hinrich/Nick Collison/Drew Gooden Kansas team? They're all nice players, but not superstars. Where are Luke Jackson and Luke Ridnour? Tayshaun Prince is a valuable player, but no Kentucky player better than him in years?

We can even go a step further than this and talk about players that are extremely good, but still not as good as they were supposed to be. Carmelo Anthony. Is he a great scorer? Yes? Is he worth a top three pick? Sure. Is he in the same category as Lebron James and Dwayne Wade like he was when he was drafted? No. As talented as they are and as much potential as they have even Kevin Durant and Greg Oden were too hyped in last year's NBA Draft. It's going to be three years at least before Kevin Durant is capable of doing anything significant (other than robbing Al Horford of the Rookie of the Year) and Greg Oden already has injury problems.