Duke's Causation and Correlation: Why the Blue Devils Can Produce Quality Pros

Duke men's basketball has, in some sense, become a laughing stock in the NBA community.

Sure, the Blue Devils always have some of the best teams in the NCAA, but their players often go on to participate in anti-climactic NBA careers.

Many like to point the blame to Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke program for not being able to mold players into quality pros, even going as far as to say that Duke can ruin a player's chances of NBA success.

This can be challenged, however, through an argument of causation and correlation, which many Duke critics fail to consider.

So what is the difference between causation and correlation?

Causation is the act of actually producing a result.

For example, if I push a chair over, my act of pushing the chair (literally touching and moving it) would be the cause, and the chair falling over would be the effect. If it were not for me touching the chair, the effect would never occur.

Correlation, on the other hand, is just the relationship between two variables, neither of which necessarily have to cause each other. 

Correlation is significantly different from causation, and this can be shown using the example of sleeping with your shoes on. Sleeping with one's shoes on is strongly correlated with waking up with a headache. Therefore, one would assume that sleeping with one's shoes on causes headaches.

As you can see, there is a correlation between these two things, yet it is clear that one does not cause the other. An outside factor, drunkenness, causes both the sleeping with your shoes on and the headaches. 

There is a high correlation between Duke basketball players and failed NBA careers, but it can be shown that the Duke basketball program does not cause these failed careers.

Here we can just look at a few examples for evidence of this.

The NBA Prospects That Never Should Have Been

Sometimes Duke has players who are great in the NCAA but not really built for the NBA in the first place.

Duke recruited these players without the intention of producing them into NBA stars, but just for short term success in the NCAA (after all, isn't that the point of an NCAA program?).

Think of guys like Jon Scheyer, J.J. Redick, Shelden Williams and Christian Laettner (the list goes on). 

A lot of past Duke players were never meant to be great NBA players, but just great NCAA players. Duke did not make them worse off but rather maximized their talent and potential by giving them a place to showcase their skills.

Fluke Accidents

Think about Jay Williams and Bobby Hurley. Both of these guys got into motor vehicle accidents early on in their NBA careers, giving them career-ending injuries.

One could argue that Bobby Hurley would have ended up like the players in the above section, but he was a point guard with great passing skills who could have excelled during the 90s.

As for Jay Williams, he was averaging 9.5 points and 4.7 assists per game in his rookie season, so the rest of his career was promising until the accident.

I shouldn't have to explain why Duke is not to blame for these failed careers.

The Ones Who Were Meant To Be Good and Ended Up Being Good

The Duke players who were quality NBA recruits ended up having good NBA careers include:

• Grant Hill, who was a great NBA player until his injuries took over (the blame for which cannot be placed on Duke).

• Elton Brand, who had a very good career until his injuries and age took over.

• Corey Maggette, who has been a solid NBA player (albeit on low quality teams).

• Shane Battier, who is one of the premier defenders in the league.

• Luol Deng, who is a quality small forward.

• Carlos Boozer, who is an all-star and one of the top power forwards in the league looking to make the Bulls a contender for the East.

Sure, some of these guys did not have the best careers that they could have had, but it has nothing to do with their stint at Duke. It has more to do with what they did after entering the league.

Duke Recruits, Don't Worry

Duke is bringing in quality recruits, such as Austin Rivers and Kyrie Irving, who are looking to go high in the NBA Lottery.

It has been a while since Duke has brought in NBA lottery (let alone NBA ready) players, and we should look for a new generation of Duke basketball to develop. 

As for current Duke players: Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith are great NCAA players, but I would not have expectations of them being great in the NBA, since they are not the highest quality of NBA prospects. 

Any success or failures of these players has little to do with their time at Duke, and they, along with their NBA coaches and teammates, should be considered responsible for their NBA careers upon leaving Duke.

Hopefully now you can see that Duke's lack of NBA greats is simply a correlation, and not caused by the quality of the program itself.