It only makes sense for him to move on to his NBA career.
Jon Rothstein is a person who tweets, quite often, the following: “Some people have hobbies. I watch college basketball.” This despite the fact that 1) watching college basketball IS a hobby 2) unless of course you make your living doing it, which Jon does. Because he’s a “CBS Insider.”
All of which is to say, Jon Rothstein is not a man who should be taken all that seriously on an intellectual level. He is not trying to make sense.
However, owing to that job as a CBS Insider (and the 235.4k Twitter followers he has amassed) it would be irresponsible to ignore him when he says something truly disgusting, as he did on Monday evening in the wake of Duke’s Jalen Johnson opting out for the rest of the season.
Rothstein spends a lot of his time sucking up to coaches, and that’s what he’s doing here, obviously. He’s upholding the notion that players owe something to their teams, and that to be considered a tough, dedicated player means to play on through anything, be it pandemic or injury. You have to earn the right to say you love the game. Or else you’re a quitter.
But here’s the thing: Johnson is dealing with an injury that has limited him, and he was always planning on going pro after this year and so, ultimately, this make sense. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said as much in a release:
“While we are encouraged by what we are seeing medically, for Jalen’s future, we believe this decision is in his best interest. We are ultimately careful with every one of our players and will continue to support Jalen as he progresses toward his goal of playing professional basketball. He deserves to be fully healthy for the upcoming NBA Draft.”
Duke, meanwhile, is 8-8 and unlikely to make the NCAA Tournament. Will K try to salvage what he can from the season? Sure. Is he ultimately spending a lot of his time ensuring this doesn’t happen next year? Absolutely. College coaches are always focused on the future more than you realize. It’s how they keep their jobs.
But Johnson opts to do what’s best for his future and is labeled “a quitter” in some flippant tweet that, sadly, will resonate.
Perhaps what’s strangest of all is that generally we laud people for making prudent decisions and seeking better opportunities. But in this case Johnson was supposed to gut it out to, what, prove a point?
Freed from the constraints of “amateurism,” Johnson can now sign with an agent who will guide him toward individualized training. He doesn’t have to deal with classes and he can work out as much as he wants (the NCAA limits how often he can be coached.) He can get healthy and turn his attention to preparing for a draft process that will have a huge impact over the rest of his life.
Johnson didn’t opt out or quit. He made a calculated decision.
If you comb through the discussion that Rothstein’s tweet generated, you’ll notice a heartening number of people who, at this point, get it. Strip away all of the syrupy sentimentality that constantly covers our conversation about college sports and you know that Johnson and Duke had an arrangement: He’d help them win if they helped him get to the NBA. That’s it. And now both sides have moved on.
Jay Bilas, the ESPN analyst who played at Duke, was asked to react to this development and had, frankly, a disappointing takeaway. Bilas has generally been very clear-eyed when it comes to the hypocrisy that underlies the college system. He gave a long, nuanced answer that made it clear he wanted more information, but ultimately ended up here:
I think I can probably help Jalen Johnson and his family with that answer:
“Oh, I just wanted to get fully healthy while also concentrating on strengthening my game so that I can be at my very best for the start of my NBA career. Also, you may have heard there’s a pandemic and I thought I could better protect myself by controlling my environment more thoroughly.”
Look at that. Pretty simple!
Johnson’s critics will point out that he switched high schools a bunch, so this is a theme and to them I would say …. he still ENDED UP AT DUKE.
Anyway, I feel greasy for even expending this much thought on something Jon Rothstein tweeted, but Johnson deserves better. Rothstein isn’t doing earnest analysis, he’s just saying what he thinks coaches might like to hear because he hopes they’ll text him back.
He, too, is making a calculated decision about his future — at the expense of a college freshman.
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