INDIANAPOLIS — On Easter Sunday afternoon, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski left little doubt about his love for his employer.
“I’ll be at Duke even after I stop coaching,” he said on the eve of the Blue Devils’ national championship game against Butler. “That’s where I’m going to be.”
But Monday morning reports began to circulate that Russian businessman Mikhail Prokhorov might be willing to pay Krzyzewski $12-$15 million to coach the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, which Prokhorov recently purchased.
Not only would that make Coach K the highest paid coach in professional basketball — eclipsing current leader Phil Jackson, who earns $12 million a year from the world champion Los Angeles Lakers — but it would nearly quadruple his current salary, believed to be about $3.5 million annually.
Given that Krzyzewski is already committed to coaching the 2012 Olympic team, which will be made up of mostly NBA players, the idea made some sense — at least until Coach K responded to the rumor.
“I haven’t been contacted,” he said before a morning shootaround at Lucas Oil Stadium. “(But) I wouldn’t be interested in the job. You would be flattered to be offered, but I would not be interested.”
He was highly interested in the Lakers opening in 2004 but finally turned it down.
“The Lakers thing, with their franchise and their history with Kobe, ” Coach K said, “if you were going to do it, I don’t know how you can jump to anything better than that.”
Almost no one ever has suggested there’s anything better about living in New Jersey than southern California.
Stevens’ trash talk
A couple of years ago, during Brad Stevens’ first season as head coach at Butler, the Bulldogs were struggling against Ohio State.
“Coach comes in at halftime and is talking about the law of averages and that typically we are going to start shooting better in the second half,” junior guard Zach Hahn recalled. “Then, right after he said it, he pulls around a trash can from behind his back, sets it right in front of each player, hands us a piece of paper and has everybody shoot it in. That got us to lighten up.”
They came back and rolled the Buckeyes 65-46.
Like father like son?
Derek Smith wasn’t in the stands to watch son Nolan help Duke against Butler. The former University of Louisville star and NBA standout died of an apparent heart attack while on a cruise ship in 1996, 15 days after Nolan’s eighth birthday.
But Nolan arrived at Indianapolis knowing well the events of 30 years ago, when the Cardinals knocked off UCLA inside Indy’s old Market Square Arena with more than a little help from his father, who had nine points and five rebounds.
“I’ve heard about that game for years from Dad’s teammates,” said Nolan, who chose Duke over Louisville largely because Blue Devils assistant Johnny Dawkins had been a teammate of Derek Smith on the Philadelphia 76ers.
“But it’s definitely been more intense this year, with it being 30 years ago and with the Final Four again being in Indianapolis. It would be pretty cool to win it here.”
Nolan has a tattoo bearing his father’s likeness on his right bicep. But according to Krzyzewski, it goes much deeper than that.
“Nolan plays with that all the time,” Coach K said Sunday. “He’s become very, very comfortable with the situation now, especially as a result of some of the features that have been done nationally.
“ESPN did one last February, and I remember calling his mom afterward. I asked, ‘Are you OK?’ (Monica) was crying. She said, ‘I’m good.’ Then I said that I thought it was beautiful, and she said, ‘So did I.’ Then she wanted to know how Nolan was.
“I told her that I thought it was like a cleansing for him to have the story told where he doesn’t have to say a word. He’s really a happy kid, he’s really a good kid, and he honors his father in that way every day. So honoring him at the Final Four is nothing new.”
Roll tissue, roll?
During Sunday’s news conferences, Butler guard Ronald Nored was asked about a title game such as this never happening in football, because a school of fewer than 4,500 students from a mid-major league would not get a BCS opportunity.
“I think that’s what makes college basketball so great,” said Nored, who grew up in Homewood, Ala. “On any given night, five guys from one school can beat five guys from another, regardless of the size of the school. That’s tougher to do in football.”
Yet Nored also quickly recalled at least one time the little guy won on the gridiron, much to his chagrin.
“I’m a big-time Alabama fan,” he said. “Saying that, when Alabama got beat by (Louisiana-Monroe) two years ago (2007), I almost cried myself to death.”