The Boyle Effect

My first thought upon reading the news that Duke freshman Kyrie Irving was leaving school for the NBA was that the young man had made a smart decision. Sure, he might be able to improve his game and long-term prospects as a player by remaining in college for at least another year, but an injury already cost him all but 11 games this season. Another collegiate injury would severely hurt his draft stock, and there is a strong possibility that it would render him virtually undraftable. Irving is already considered a top 2 or 3 pick in the draft; his potential coming out of college would never be higher than it is today. One attends college to grow as an individual and to do what is necessary to maximize one’s market value to potential employers. After one season, Kyrie Irving has accomplished that. Professionally speaking, there is nothing left for the young man to accomplish at Duke. The time for him to leave is right now. He made the right decision, and I am happy for him.

But my second thought was that I wouldn’t draft Kyrie Irving. That has nothing to do with him leaving school after just one season. Had Irving remained at Duke for four year, won 3 national championships, and 3 Naismith Awards, I still wouldn’t draft him. That has nothing to do with Irving’s character or ability. Nope. Irving’s biggest basketball flaw is that he played on a high school team coached by Kevin Boyle.

Before we get to Boyle, some background…





One day last week someone brought up the Pistons-Heat Eastern Conference Finals of 2005. Whenever I think about that series, I don’t think about Dwyane Wade’s injury. Instead, I think about the fourth quarter of Game 7 and how the Heat blew the game on two possessions near the end of the game. Miami trailed by two points with about three and a half minutes left, and Shaquille O’Neal made an apparent decision to take over the game. He established himself in the post and demanded the ball. Ben Wallace fouled him and Shaq converted both free throws to tie the game. After a defensive stop, O’Neal demanded the ball again and gave Miami the lead by hitting a basket. The Heat held Detroit scoreless again. On the ensuing possession, Miami had a chance to make it a two-possession game. Again, O’Neal planted himself in the post and demanded the ball. Damon Jones passed the ball into the post, but Shaq wanted to get a little closer. He passed it back to Jones and attempted to repost, but Jones instead swung it around the perimeter. Tayshaun Prince stole the ball and Richard Hamilton scored to tie the game again. When Miami got the ball back, they fed Shaq in the post and he drew another foul on Wallace. He converted one of two to put the Heat up by one. Two free throws put Detroit back up by one, and instead of feeding O’Neal in the post again, Dwyane Wade came down and rushed a long jump shot before most of his teammates had made it down the court. Detroit scored again and the game was essentially over. I will always feel that Miami would have won that game had they fed Shaq on those two possessions that ended with Damon Jones’ turnover and Wade’s missed long jumper.

Because of the way my brain works, that led me to thinking about Game 7 of the NBA Finals between Detroit and San Antonio. The fourth quarter began with the two teams tied, and I thought to myself that Detroit would win if they continually fed Rasheed Wallace in the post. I knew that wasn’t going to happen though. As it turned out, no Piston other than Rasheed scored until 8:35 had ticked off the clock in that quarter. The Spurs were up by six points by then. Rasheed was 3-4 in the quarter up to that point, but it wasn’t enough. Detroit never caught up, and I will always believe that Detroit lost that game because they didn’t learn the lesson of why Miami had failed against them. They didn’t feet Rasheed like they should have, and Rasheed didn’t demand the ball like he should have.

But I knew not to expect that out of Rasheed Wallace. I had been watching him play since he was in the tenth grade at Simon Gratz High School in North Philly. At Gratz, Wallace was coached by Bill Ellerbe, a coach I found to be stylistically and philosophically closer to John Chaney than any other coach I’ve ever seen. Like Chaney, Ellerbe is a coach who believed that the guards should do all of the ball handling and an overwhelming majority of the shooting. He wanted his big guys to always defer to the guards. When I saw Gratz lose to Franklin Learning Center in the 1992 Public League Championship Game, I came away thinking that Rasheed would never, ever dominate even though he had the talent to do so. I can’t tell you how many times he was wide open for 12-foot baseline jumpers in that game, but I can tell you he only took one of them (he made it). The normal routine was for him to hold the ball above his head and pass it out to point guard Reds Smith. That’s why Wallace only averaged 16 points per game as a senior. He was the national player of the year because all the scouts could see his talent, but he didn’t even lead his high school team in scoring or shot attempts per game.

Rasheed wasn’t going to ever dominate in college or the NBA because Ellerbe coached that out of his game. That messed up his game for his entire career. I will always believe that is why we never saw Rasheed Wallace exploit his post game and become a Hall of Fame power forward.

Chaney and Ellerbe are coaches who are good at getting the most out of players with low and average levels of talent. But they coach the same way when they have the best players, and I believe that hurts those highly talented players. For every Aaron McKie and Mardy Collins that Chaney sent to the NBA, there was a Mark Macon or Lamont Barnes, really good players who got worse every year under the coach’s tutelage.

Most high school coaches have little effect on the long-term games of NBA-level players. Others help. Some are really, really detrimental. And because I was thinking about that Miami-Detroit game and the San Antonio-Detroit game, I started to think about other high school coaches who mess up their players. At the top of my list is Kevin Boyle.

Once I found out the Kyrie Irving went to St. Patrick’s I realized that he is someone I would never draft. I’ve seen enough of Kevin Boyle and I’ve seen enough of his players. He sends a lot of players to high level Division I schools and the NBA because he was able to recruit New Jersey’s best players to his school. But he is the most hotheaded and spastic basketball coach I have ever seen. A quick look at some of his former players (Al Harrington, Samuel Dalembert, and Derrick Caracter, to name a few) is to look at a list of some the most brain farting and frustrating players in college and NBA ball in the past 15 years. (As I write this, I’m surprised he lost J.R. Smith to St. Benedict’s.)

I haven’t seen any of that out of Kyrie Irving—or Dexter Strickland, for that matter—but I don’t trust Kevin Boyle. I’d sign Irving or any of Boyle’s other players as a free agent after watching them play in the league for a few years, but I wouldn’t draft any of them, especially not at or near the top of the draft.