This article has been submitted by Stu Wilkinson.

We all know that Duke University is an awful academic institution with an embarrassment for a men’s basketball team. Although I’ve never met a Duke graduate, I’m sure that they are all complete jerks, as jerkiness pretty much comes with a diploma from Duke University. Most guys on the men’s basketball team probably don’t even have a diploma, despite Coach K’s best efforts to bribe their professors with bags of dollar bills given to him by American Express and Chevrolet. Even without a full Duke education, however, Duke’s men’s basketball players do consistently manage to be the jerk store’s best-selling item.

Maybe some of what I said in that opening paragraph was harsh. Some of it probably came pretty close to libel, which is okay since libel is perfectly legal on the internet. There was a point to all of those cruel words though: Duke basketball players cannot be trusted. That’s not a baseless accusation, it’s a fact. Other than Grant Hill, there are no high character Duke players in the NBA. Let’s take a look at the facts, starting with the newest member of the untrustworthy Duke players club.

Elton Brand
Although I don’t have extensive records of Brand’s conversations with Baron Davis over the past couple weeks, I am going to assume that Davis believed that EB was coming back to the Clippers (check this). This of course led to B Dizzle taking a slight pay cut to come to Los Angeles and make a run with Brand, Kaman, Tim Thomas, and Paul Davis. Sadly for Baron, the 76ers decided to take a run at Brand and landed him.

This makes Brand a typical low-character Duke player. He single-handedly crushed the dreams of euphoric Clippers fans and stabbed Baron Davis in the back. The former is understandable and has to be done every once and a while, but the latter is completely unconscionable. Screwing over Baron Davis is like punching a clown in the face, but if that clown had an awesome beard and could dunk a basketball off an alley-oop from half court.

Carlos Boozer
The prototypical Duke snake in the grass, Boozer made his name by bolting from Cleveland to Utah during the summer of 2004. Cleveland’s GM, former Duke Blue Devil Danny Ferry, agreed to release Boozer from the last year of his rookie contract (worth $695,000) in order to sign him to a six year, $39 million extension. The Cavs believed that Boozer was committed to the extension and being a key piece for the team in the long term.

Once Cleveland released Boozer he signed a contract with the Jazz worth $70 million over six years. Boozer of course says that he never made a commitment to the Cavaliers, which makes complete sense when you look at what happened. Of course the Cavs would release Boozer without any assurances that he’d resign with them immediately. That just makes sense!

Danny Ferry
Although Cleveland was hurt badly by Boozer’s dishonest behavior, you shouldn’t view them as a blind man that just got robbed by a bunch of teenage hoodlums. Danny Ferry was trying to lock Boozer into a long term contract worth significantly less than his market value. You could say that Boozer out-Duked Ferry by telling him he’d resign then bolting in the middle of the night. Say what you want about Carlos Boozer, but it’s pretty tough to out-Duke a white three point specialist.

J.J. Redick
J.J. recently demanded that the Orlando Magic either play him or trade him. Apparently he hasn’t realized that he’s a three point specialist that shoots 39.5% from three point range.

Chris Duhon
I had to do some Wikipedia research to dig up some dirt on Duhon, who has been pretty much on the level since graduating from Duke and moving on to the NBA. Luckily he’s headed to the Knicks next season, which means he’ll be in some serious dirt soon enough. In the meantime I can fall back on the three separate occasions Duhon was disciplined for missing team events, one of which was a film session before a game against the Pistons in the playoffs. Duhon was forced to sit out the game and the Bulls lost, so draw your own conclusions.

Also Duhon donated about $450,000 worth of stuff to Katrina victims, so kudos to him for that. Does it change the fact that he had to be disciplined three times by notoriously easy-going Scott Skiles? Absolutely not.

Kobe Bryant
Finally, let’s remember that one of the greats at stabbing his organization in the back off the court almost attended Duke. He’s had a customized version of his signature shoes made for Duke, and one of the main reasons he’s on the new Dream Team is Coach K’s presence (ignore that dump truck full of money with a swoosh on it parked outside his house). Kobe can’t be officially added to the Duke Douche Bag Hall of Fame because he never laced them up for the Blue Devils, but we’ll give him a statue that depicts him demanding a trade. It’ll be called Coach K Rubbing Off On Kobe, and it will be glorious.

So there you have it, a moderately researched list of former Duke players that have had some moral transgressions during their careers in the NBA. I guarantee that no other university has had as many untrustworthy (drug arrests and strip club shootings don’t count) players come from their program. I can’t wait until Gerald Henderson sits out his rookie year because he doesn’t want to play in Milwaukee.

This article has been submitted by Stu Wilkinson.