Former preps-to-pros star Eddy Curry regrets skipping college
Eddy Curry was basketball-famous when he was 16, he was a franchise cornerstone of one of the NBA’s marquee teams when he was 18, and an NBA washout by 25. Drafted directly out of high school to his hometown Chicago Bulls in 2001, Curry showed flashes of All-Star promise at times during his too-brief career, but his role as an everyday player was just about done by 2008, as he played just 26 games between 2007-08 and his last stint with the NBA in 2012.
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Chaos and off-the-court woes followed Curry from his peak as a pro in late 2004-05 until the end of his run, with a since-dismissed sexual harassment suit, the frightening murder of the mother of one of his seven children, and all manner of on-court frustration regarding his underachieving play in the pivot for (mostly) Chicago and New York.
Curry is attempting to make a comeback of sorts with the Champions Basketball League, a traveling collection of ex-NBA semi-stars set to hit the pine in 2017. Until then, he’s decided to act as a motivational speaker, and he recently sat in front of a group of high school athletes from Metea Valley High School in Aurora, IL to discuss some of the drawbacks that come from being too good at too young an age.
From Suzanne Baker at the Naperville Times:
He said his only regret was not attending college and participating in the rites of passage, like living in a dorm, or experiencing the growth and maturity so many NBA players received as college athletes.
“It would be super dope to have a college diploma,” Curry said.
[…]
“I was a kid coming out of high school, literally,” he said.
“When I was in Chicago, they babied me in Chicago. They really kind of sheltered and kept us kind of concealed and didn’t let us get into a lot of stuff. Then I went to New York and it was total opposite. It was like boom,” he said.
While he hinted that his lifestyle got a bit wild, Curry shied away details.
Things never really got on track for Curry once he left the comforts of his Chicago home.
This isn’t to say his first few years with the Bulls went swimmingly, either. Drafted No. 4 overall in 2001, Curry was immediately used as a scapegoat of sorts by then-Chicago general manager Jerry Krause for the subsequent deal that sent 20-and-10 man and 1999-00 co-Rookie of the Year Elton Brand to the Clippers for No. 2 pick Tyson Chandler. Brand’s low post game wouldn’t work well alongside Curry’s, Krause argued, while Chandler’s all-around gifts would fit well alongside Curry’s offensive-minded approach.
It wasn’t a terrible plan in the slightest, as Chandler’s continuing long NBA career (working alongside all manner of frontcourt partners) would suggest. Tyson’s first few years, however, were hamstrung by back injuries and timing issues, while Curry was immediately identified as one of the league’s worst defenders, a lacking rebounder (when asked what he could do to improve at that end, then-coach Scott Skiles infamously replied, “jump”) that was terribly foul and turnover-prone.
This was all apparent to anyone who scouted Curry in high school, where he barely averaged double-digit rebounds during his senior year, but Chandler’s presence was supposed to mollify these shortcomings. That idea finally took hold in 2004-05, with Krause since let go by the team, when Chandler (fully healthy, though coming off of the bench) and Curry helped contributed mightily to a Bulls turnaround that saw a team that started 2-13 finish with a 47-35 record and the franchise’s first playoff appearance since Michael Jordan’s retirement.
Curry was sidelined with an irregular heartbeat just before the end of the regular season, though, missing the postseason (Eddy would retire without ever playing an NBA playoff game) prior to his turn as a restricted free agent in the offseason. Chicago, worried about Curry’s health, offered him several life-long contract options that would pay him nearly in perpetuity should his heart issues sideline Eddy for good, while Curry (quite understandably) refused to submit to DNA testing that would help determine if his heart issues were a genetic condition.
Champing at the bit from afar, hardly swayed by former Bull Jamal Crawford’s underwhelming first year with the Knicks and his recent signing of center Jerome James to a free agent deal, was New York president Isiah Thomas. With the Bulls and Curry at an impasse, Thomas structured a sign-and-trade for the center that sent draft picks to Chicago that later turned into LaMarcus Aldridge (immediately dealt for Tyrus Thomas) and current Knick Joakim Noah.
Curry averaged a career high 19.5 points and seven rebounds in his second season with New York, but his pairing with Zach Randolph in his third year was a disaster, and he was more or less done as an NBA mainstay following that stint. The heart issues, thankfully, never became a problem again, but his weight ballooned and despite the strong scoring output he was a minus player overall for a series of disastrous Knick outfits.
In effect, he’d chosen to agree to deal away his best chance at NBA relevance back in 2005.
His situation in Chicago was ideal – and not just because he was working from home, near his supportive parents and in the bubble the Bulls organization apparently provided for him. On the court Curry was allowed to be a situational star for an otherwise-terrible offensive team that badly needed what he was best at. Surrounded by defenders and rebounders, Curry could dominate first and third quarters with his scoring without much expectation for providing things he just wasn’t all that good at.
Could college have changed any of this?
In giving away that a college diploma (which Curry could still earn) is “dope,” Eddy seems to hint that all four years working for free in the NCAA would have done him well. Since Danny Manning was taken first overall by the Clippers in 1988, though, there have been just two seniors and college graduates taken No. 1 overall by the NBA: Tim Duncan in 1997, and Kenyon Martin (a late-bloomer who was considered a fringe lottery pick entering his senior season, in a historically weak draft) in 2000. Top rank players just don’t stay four years anymore, and for good reason.
The lead reason is the idea that working for free in the billion-buck NCAA system is a raw deal, Curry’s NBA career had already hit his peak by what would have been his senior year draft in 2005 (when sophomore Andrew Bogut went first overall). Secondly, and most important to the NBA consumer, is the fact that working even as a bit player in a professional system is far preferable in terms of development than acting as a star within the NCAA coaching system.
The coaching is superior, better suited for the professional game, and there is far more opportunity to work on one’s skills as a young pro as opposed to a college “student/athlete.” To say nothing of the experience gleaned from banging against older combatants in practice, or in even limited game action.
Could the college experience have helped Eddy Curry stay in line once he became a New York Knick at (nearly) age 23 in 2005? That’s tough to assume. One year at college as a prominent athlete, mostly spent at practice, at games, or on the road, isn’t the same as the typical college freshman dorm learning curve.
Teammate Tyson Chandler also came to Chicago at age 18, and he seemed to handle moving half a country away from his California home quite well during his five seasons with Chicago. The Bulls dealt Chandler to New Orleans in 2006 in a money-saving move, and though the then-Hornets played a goodly chunk of its schedule in Oklahoma City that first season, Tyson still handled the change in scenery appropriately.
Other preps-to-pros types like Tracy McGrady and Jermaine O’Neal also handled early-career switches quite well, but McGrady returned to his Florida home, and O’Neal was traded to Indianapolis – working in a county where it is illegal to use a Phillips-head screwdriver on Sundays.
Curry went to New York City, working for a franchise led by Isiah Thomas and James Dolan, at an age where most college graduates move back in with their parents while trying to figure out how to pay off student loan debts some $97 at a time.
Rebounding is something you either have, or you don’t. College rebounding statistics are perhaps the most important crossover NCAA-to-NBA stat to look at when divining a prospect’s pro potential, and for Eddy Curry to barely make a dent on the glass while working in a semi-suburban Chicago prep high school system was a bit of a worry. It’s very much doubtful that some time spent with Billy Donovan in Florida or Bob Huggins in Cincinnati back in 2001 and 2002 would have done much for his all-around game.
For his perspective, as a professional? We’ll never know.
It is still worth gnashing teeth about, because despite his limitations Eddy Curry could have carved out a helpful and prominent NBA career. Especially as you look at Tyson Chandler – who could be the most sought-after player on the trade market in 2016-17 even at age 34 – as he still plugs along.
There’s still time for that diploma, though. Committing to the NBA in 2001 may have taken away Eddy Curry’s chance at making the NCAA Final Four, but it doesn’t stand in the way of him achieving greater things as he heads into middle age.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
