I want Kris Humphries to come to Cameron so I can directly ask him--or someone very close to him--why he abandoned his National Letter of Intent to play basketball at Duke in order to enroll at Minnesota, and why the National Letter of Intent Steering Committee accepted his appeal to allow him to compete in the 2003-04 season. Asking him in person is the only journalistic method available, as Humphries and his supporters have been nothing but evasive throughout one of the strangest ordeals in recent Duke basketball history.
Before going any further, let's examine Humphries' history with the Blue Devils. Humphries, a ballyhooed 6-foot-8, 240 pound recruit from Minnesota, verbally committed to play for Duke in the summer of 2002. Verbal commitments are not binding, and a player can change his mind about which school to attend without any punishment from the NCAA.
But in November Humphries was temporarily true to his word, and signed with Duke. Humphries seemed happy with his decision, and made no qualms when his Hopkins High School basketball team played at Cameron in a 63-46 loss to St. Anthony's (New Jersey) during a winter tournament held in the Triangle area last January. But in mid-May, Duke, on Humphries' request, released the Minnesota native from his National Letter of Intent.
The decision shocked nearly everyone, and no one involved had any explanation or analysis on what went wrong. NCAA rules prohibit Duke from commenting on the former Hopkins star, but the Humphrieses, along with their friends and family, deliberately chose not to explain themselves.
There were only three speculative reasons tossed around about Humphries' departure: That he wanted a guarantee of significant playing time in order to quicken his route to the NBA, that Humphries wanted to play on the perimeter more than the Duke coaching staff envisioned and that Humphries wanted to play closer to home.
The first two reasons, if true, are founded on poor logic. Any player that is ready to compete in the NBA would receive plenty of floor time on a Duke squad, and Mike Krzyzewski has a solid history of using his post players on the perimeter with the most glaring example being 1992 national player-of-the-year Christian Laettner.
And even if these were the reasons for his departure, they certainly are not the "extenuating circumstances" that the National Letter of Intent Steering Committee requires for instant eligibility. Normally when a player is released from a National Letter of Intent, he must sit out one season.
Creating a horrible precedent, The National Letter of Intent Steering Committee granted Humphries' appeal, and he is all set to play for Minnesota this season. The Star Tribune in Minneapolis, Minn., reported that despite a lack of publicly known "extenuating circumstances," Humphries said that he knew all along he would be able to play in the coming season.
"We knew awhile ago that it should be a for-sure [decision], but I didn't want to publicly state it," Humphries told the Associated Press in a story published July 22.
What I want to know--and what the Duke community deserves to know--is what else Humphries "knew awhile ago."
But despite his son's silence, Humphries' father, William, told the Indianapolis Star that he would eventually provide an explanation about Kris' surprise decision.
"I told somebody yesterday, 'Don't you think it's kind of strange that we haven't made a comment concerning it?,'" William Humphries said in May. "That's because there's more to the story. There's a legitimate reason."
Well, many a moon has passed since that statement, so I decided to give him a call. Mr. Humphries was busy, and politely gave me his wife's phone number. But the elusiveness continued.
"I have no desire to comment on that," Mrs. Humphries said.
Calls to the office of the National Letter of Intent also went unreturned as of late yesterday.
If Kris and his supporters have trouble communicating via phone and e-mail, that's fine. They can all stop by Cameron one day.
We'll be waiting.
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