If David Eckstein Played NCAA Basketball, Which Current Duke Blue Devil Would He Be?

Small. White. Really White. Frail, at least in appearance. Comically overexposed and overhyped. Considered by millions to be good at his sport. Not actually very good at his sport. And the real clincher- when confronted with facts about his inadequacies, his defenders immediately fall back on the intangibles he allegedly brings to the field/court/surface/area. Hmmm.... who could it be? Come on, keep guessing. You'll get it eventually. Think overrated. Really overrated.

Give up?

Thank you, Gary Parrish of CBSSportsline, for helping me establish the validity of this comparison with one of the worst puff pieces I've ever seen.

Never asking for comparisons, Paulus just wants to be Paulus

You're off to a puffy start- already making excuses for the guy before the article even starts.

Greg Paulus cannot do a lot of things other people can do.

That's not really true if taken literally. If you replace "people" with "college basketball players," however, it's definitely true.

He cannot run like Ty Lawson. Or jump like Derrick Rose. Or see the court like D.J. Augustin. Or lock down an opponent like Darren Collison.

Oh God, no. No no no no no. Combined together, all these things are the equivalent of saying that Woody Paige cannot win a Pulitzer Prize.

And I could spend a long while writing about what Paulus can't do, but hasn't that been done enough already?

As long as people like you keep writing articles like this? Absolutely not. Before I really start trashing on him, let me take this opportunity to explain to the potentially uninformed masses what kind of player Paulus is.

We'll start with his defense, which is sub-mediocre. Then we can get into his offensive numbers. I'll round when possible for convenience's sake. In 2005-06, amidst levels of preseason freshman hype that matched anyone in recent memory save Greg Oden, he went for 7 points, 5.2 assists, 3.3 turnovers, and 37% shooting (!) from the floor in 32 minutes a game. In 2006-07, he went for 12 points, 3.8 assists, 3.1 turnovers (look at that A/TO ratio), and 46% shooting in 32 minutes per game. This year, as a junior, he's putting up a line of 11 points, 3.5 assists, 1.7 turnovers, and 46% shooting in 26 minutes a game. That's paltry at best for a starting PG. I won't list the stats of the four other guys Parrish listed above, but you can look them up if you want. Rose is already marginally better and he's only a freshman. Collison (jr.), Lawson (soph.), and Augustin (soph.) are so much better that it's not even worth comparing them to Paulus.

Who else can we throw into the discussion? Sean Singletary is better. A.J. Price is better. Levance Fields is better. Taylor Rochestie is better. Mario Chalmers is better. Dominic James is better. Kyle McAlarney is better, and he's probably playing high half the time. Do I need to keep going? My guess is that Paulus is somewhere around the 40th or 50th best PG in the country. Does it seem like a guy in that range should get the press he gets? How many of these guys I listed come even close to his level of hype? I know, I know, it's because he plays for Duke. But that's the whole point of this rant. This. Guy. Isn't. Very. Good. Please, if we must talk about THE DOOKIEEEEEEEESSSSSS, can we talk about someone else on their team? Someone who's actually good?

I mean, we've spent the better part of two-plus years discussing Paulus' deficiencies, which is only natural when dealing with the person who plays point guard for the premier brand in college basketball. Paulus gets that. And though it's easy to point out how he's not the second-coming of Bobby Hurley-

This is where the nonsense starts.

it's worth pointing out he never actually staked that claim, never asked for the comparison or the criticism that comes with it.

That's so very relevant to the discussion as to whether or not Paulus is good. Thanks for bringing it up. Let's make some comparisons from other sports. Maybe Ryan Leaf didn't end up being that good. But did you ever heard him claim to be better than Joe Montana? And I'm so tired of hearing people trash on Cedric Benson. Has he ever explicitly said he would be as good as Walter Payton? Everyone can laugh at what a flop Corey Patterson has ended up being. I don't remember him telling the media he was going to make everyone forget about Willie Mays! No, Danica Patrick has never won a race. (And yes, she is much less attractive than advertisers would lead you to believe.) But as far as I know, she doesn't consider herself to be as good as Mario Andretti in his prime. And blah blah blah.

Honestly, that might be the worst puff piece defense ever. A really hyped up player... has never told anyone they were great... and this is supposed to be a big point in their favor? Wow. Just, wow.

"Comparisons will be made," Paulus said. "But if you stay true to yourself and don't try to be something you're not then everything will take care of itself."

"Admitting the obvious. But cliche about being mediocre and cliche about being mediocre, very untrue cliche about results."

Duke entered the Dean Dome with doubters Wednesday night and exited with an 89-78 victory against North Carolina that should finally convince everybody the Blue Devils are the favorites in the ACC.

Despite not being quick enough on the perimeter or big enough on the interior -- those were the thoughts in the preseason, weren't they? -- the Blue Devils will head into their game against Boston College on Saturday with a 20-1 record and a two-game lead in the league standings, and among the reasons is that Paulus character everyone (except Duke fans) loves to hate.

In the sense that he is on the team, gets significant minutes, and plays well about once every four or five games, yes. He is "among the reasons" Duke is cruising though the unusually crappy ACC. Don't forget their impressive non-conference schedule, which included Wisconsin and Marquette (their only quality wins besides UNC), Pitt (their only loss), and... uh... mid-major darling Davidson? Albany? Princeton? New Mexico State?

No, he's not up for All-America honors.

Probably won't make all-conference either.

Nor should he be, and nor should he.

But Paulus is a key component on this team, a veteran part that makes things work.

And heeeeeeeeeeeere cooooooooommmmmmmmmme the intaaaaaaaaaaangiblesssssssssss!

And the wild thing is that while he's generally despised by opposing fans, he's really everything we claim we want our sports figures to be.

You mean, like good at sports? We've been over this. He's really not.

He plays hard and plays hurt.

Oh, I see. You mean he's gritty.

He maximizes his ability, claps his hands and cares.

And gutty.

He laughs when things are great.

He plays the game the way it was meant to be played.

He cries when things are bad.

He's not a robot? He's like Dwyane Wade?

He doesn't get arrested at clubs or suspended for missing workouts.

He is able to maintain his scholarship by not committing crimes or doing things that would get him kicked off the team.

He loves representing Duke while performing for his coach, and you get the sense there is nothing he'd rather do than play college basketball forever and ever and ever.

He brings his lunchpail to the arena every night. He takes the extra base. He gets his uniform dirty. He's a dirtbag. The fans love him because he is small and white like they are. See how the Eckstein comparison works?

So why am I writing this column now?

Because you <3 Duke? Because Paulus reminds you of yourself back when you were playing on your high school's JV team? Because mediocrity intrigues you?

Because it occurred to me while watching Paulus make six of eight 3-pointers to finish with 18 points against North Carolina that the outside expectations on him have always been unfair,

Hooray for small sample size! Furthermore, re: outside expectations. Think back. Way back to November 2005. Do you know what people were saying about this guy? Gatorade National High School Player of the Year. Not for basketball. For everything. (Partially because he was a 2-sport athlete, admittedly. But that's obviously not 100% of the reason.) Um, I think it's probably fair to expect a guy like that to be pretty good in college.

and that the second I typed any kind words about the former two-sport star I would get a dozen e-mails explaining how he's overrated and an arrogant little prick.

I have no idea what his personality is like, but he's beyond overrated. He's basketball's answer to Torii Hunter. Actually, that's an insult to Hunter. Paulus is more like basketball's answer to Juan Pierre.

That's what Paulus can do to your inbox, case you didn't know. He's a polarizing figure. And if the past year has taught me anything it's that when I write something unpleasant about him Duke fans will defend him, and when I write something nice about him everybody else's fans will criticize the point while calling me stupid and insisting Paulus isn't one of the top players in the nation.

Are you implying he is? He isn't. Unless you mean, like, one of the top 250 players in the nation.

But guess what?

You think Greg Paulus is just swell.

He never said he was!

We already went over that. Exactly as relevant to a discussion of Paulus's value or perceived value as what his favorite Beatles album is. (Mine is Revolver, but if you want a dark horse candidate, I'd go with Rubber Soul. See how sophisticated I am? Ooooooh, look at me.)

And that reminds me of a story about Ryan Adams, the acclaimed singer-songwriter from the state of North Carolina, oddly enough.

Ryan Adams? The guy who for some reason bothered to cover "Wonderwall?" Why are we talking about this?

When Adams first broke into the scene in the mid-1990s he was a critic's darling, just a brilliant young performer who wrote smart songs that connected with fans, particularly fans who had ever experienced a break-up.

Becoming the first musical artist in history to endear himself fans in such a way. Poison tried so hard, but they just couldn't quite get it right.

The guy was really, really good. But at some point the perception turned, and the same critics who hailed him were suddenly calling him overrated, insisting he wasn't the next Bob Dylan or anything else.

Adams addressed the criticism in a 2004 magazine interview.

His reaction: "I never said I was any good."

Great anecdote, really. But here's the problem. Ryan Adams doesn't have any statistics. He doesn't have a good song per album average, or a clever lyrics to cliched lyrics ratio. You might think he sucks, but you couldn't really do much to objectively prove it. You might think he's the greatest artist ever to lay hands on a guitar, and you also couldn't objectively prove that.

But Greg Paulus does have statistics. You can see, very clearly, that he's an inefficient point guard. You can see that while he's become a better shooter than he was his freshman year, he still doesn't bring much to the table offensively. And although there aren't any solid raw defensive statistics, you can tell objectively from looking at game film that he's not very good at that. See how that works? You can't compare the value of athletes to the value of performing artists. It's not allowed. Unless that artist is Foreigner, which is objectively the best band of the 80's. Yes, better than Guns n' Roses, The Cure, or REM.

Which brings me back to Paulus, Wednesday night and the verbal assault he endured. It started early and lasted late and included words I will gladly relay as soon as I get a show on SIRIUS Satellite Radio and am thus free of FCC regulations. I cannot repeat them here. The whole thing was nasty and typical, just a bunch of people telling him what he can't do even though he has never spent a minute trying to tell people all the things he can do.

You mean the verbal assault he endured from the fans of his school's most bitter rival? Shock. Flabbergastion. Confusion. Where do those North Carolina ragamuffins get off booing Duke players? How dare they. That is so rude. This reminds me of the time I heard that Texas fans and Oklahoma fans are often less than cordial to each other. What is wrong with the world? It's just a game, people!

"He's not Bobby Hurley," Duke freshman Taylor King said in an attempt to set the record straight. "He's Greg Paulus."

"Two part cliche," said teammate who of course isn't going to say anything bad about player.

Yep, he's Greg Paulus.

Just Greg Paulus.

Just a pretty mediocre and comically overhyped player.

And with any luck, one day that might just be good enough.

Well, he's a junior right now. He's more than halfway though his college career. He probably has less than 50 games left. He might want to get around to being "good enough" to somewhat match expectations reasonably soon.

Or did I take that too literally? I guess when he graduates from Duke and goes into the real world, maybe he'll become an excellent salesman or consultant or something. And in that case, being Greg Paulus would probably be good enough.