Duke players in the NBA should be avoided like a girlfriend with anger issues, no matter how good they looked in college. If you don't believe me, just ask Cleveland GM Danny Ferry how well the NBA careers of former Duke stars have gone.

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How do players who show so much promise in college fail at such a high rate in the NBA? I don't want to use the word "curse," but only supernatural forces can explain the horror show of Grant Hill's ankles.

A better solution is to blame Coach K's system for making above-average players look fantastic, which is better than his protégé Quin Snyder's system of making fantastic players look below-average. (Don't worry, Quin; you've got the best hair in the whole damn unemployment line.) In this vein, Redick might just be better off bagging the NBA and joining Coach K's bench a la Steve Wojciehowski, although he'll have to slap the court an awful lot in his last dozen games to be as annoying as Wojo was in his playing days.

As a friend recently pointed out to me, this is the same system that made Christian Laettner the all-time least-deserving player to own an Olympic gold medal. (Vin Baker would have won this award, but he traded his medal for a plate of Buffalo wings with extra bleu cheese.) Duke basketball relies on a killer team concept, with enough McDonald's All-American talent and ball movement to get the great shooters open, and it's especially deadly when there's a good big man to keep defenses honest. In the NBA, however, Redick will miss having a dominant post presence like Shelden Williams to take the pressure off of him in the defense and thin-mustache-growing departments.

Still not convinced? Mike Dunleavy got a huge, cap-killing contract extension even though his only discernible talent is looking like the elf from the Claymation Rudolph movie. When the NBA adds naked free-throw shooting to the All-Star Skills Competition, Dahntay Jones will be a mortal lock to win. Until then, he's relegated to playing 12 minutes a night for the Grizzlies. Carlos Boozer looks like he may be on the Grant Hill Perpetually-Injured Career Arc, but at least he can still be remembered as the only NBA player whose chest hair showed even when he wore a turtleneck. They're all hilariously disappointing when they take it to the next level.

In the American Express commercial that just won't die, Coach K says he wants to send his players out into the world armed with more than just a jumpshot, but Redick will go into the pros armed with only a jumpshot and a sneer. Like a lot of former Blue Devils, he'll probably be a lottery pick, and he may even stick around for five or six years as a situational shooter on someone's bench. More likely, he'll probably be the reincarnation of Danny Ferry, and I don't mean that he'll refuse to play for the Clippers and then fail to re-sign LeBron James 20 years later.

I'd go on, but I've got to wrap things up. Cherokee Parks just showed up to deliver my pizza. Can I give him his own rookie card as a tip, or is that considered cheap?