A more modest suggestion than it sounds

Likely you've heard of that absolute load playing basketball for Duke this season, a 280-pound freshman named Zion Williamson who throws down armloads of highlight-reel dunks and is almost certain to be the top pick in June's NBA draft.

The kid's as sure a thing as there is an unsure world. In fact the only reason he's in Durham at all, rather than already throwing down armloads of highlight-reel dunks for the Knicks or someone, is because of the NBA's benighted 19-year-old rule.

In other words, Duke's just a bus stop for him. It's not like he's actually a college student or anything.

Which brings us to Monday night, when Williamson went for a  "career" high of 35 points and took 10 boards in Duke's upset loss at home to Syracuse. The next day, NBA Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen made a radical suggestion that actually isn't radical at all.

He said it was time for Williamson to protect the assets -- i.e., stop playing and begin preparing for the draft. Why continue playing and risk an injury that could wind up costing him dearly in June?

The back-in-the-day crowd would no doubt immediately react with horror at such a notion, and on its face it does sound ludicrous. Why come to Duke at all if you're going to bail halfway through the season?

But like a lot of things, the more you think about it the less ludicrous it sounds.

First of all, the question could just as easily be "Why come to Duke at all if you're going to bail after one season?" And we all know the answer: Because guys like Williamson have to hang out somewhere until they turn 19.

And so they go to Duke or Kentucky or Kansas or wherever as, essentially, rentals. No matter how Mike Kryzyzewski tries to frame it, that's what Williamson and R.J. Barrett and Tre Jones (who's already hurt, by the way) are. They're not college students in any real sense. They're not even Blue Devils, really. Their connection to Duke is tenuous at best.

Dirty little not-so-secret: One-and-dones sometimes aren't even going to class during the spring semester. To maintain eligibility, they're only required to do so for the fall semester. So the name on the front of the basketball jersey is mere camouflage.

It's an obvious charade, a shabby deal whose terms are implicitly understood by both the player and the coach. The player gets somewhere to play basketball and keep his skills sharp for one winter. The coach and his school maybe get a deep NCAA Tournament run out of it, which of course translates to a fatter bottom line.

Neither can possibly be happy about it. But it's the game the NBA is forcing them to play, and so they play it.

All Pippen suggested the other day was that Williamson simply not play it anymore.

Can't say I disagree.