Some people have second lives. In the case of Jonathan Mark Redick, that second life was lived much of last year on internet blogs. Everyone was talking about J J Redick and now nobody is. It's the fastest drop from the front pages since Milli Vanilli.

The debate over Orlando making Redick the 11th pick in the 2006 draft was intense. Depending on what blog you read, Redick was either the greatest pure shooter o####eneration and a can't miss pro or a slow, one dimensional, beneficiary of the Coach K's system. These arguements were made with an intensity normally reserved for discussions of the Bush presidency or the relative merits of American Idol contestants.

Then they stopped.

Plug in J J Redick's name on Google and it draws few recent hits. The missing persons report on Redick reads something like this:

Number 11 pick in the 2006 NBA draft by the Orlando Magic...arrested in June for making a U-turn to avoid a DUI checkpoint...unable to play in NBA summer leagues because of back and foot injuries...played some pickup ball in September...made an appearance in one exhibition game and did not score....did not play in the opening night win against Chicago.

Dwight Howard (27 points and 11 rebounds against the Bulls) is the star in Orlando. Redick's job is to come in and hit some outside shots to open space on the court. So far, that role is being played by Keith Bogans. Bogans career at Kentucky was not the headline grabber Redick's was at Duke, and Orlando is his 4th NBA stop in 3 years. But Bogans was on the court for 16 minutes the other night and Redick wasn't.

So briefly was Travis Diener, a smaller (6'1") version of Redick who played 23 games for Orlando last season after quietly leaving Marquette's hallowed halls. His game is alot like that of the Duke icon, who says he expects to be an NBA role player. A player who can hit the three pointer, but has to be spotted because of defensive liabilities.

So what does it all mean? One conclusion you can draw is that your college credentials count for little in the pros. Look over any NBA roster and you'll see guys you never heard of in college who are getting significant minutes and production. A number of college all-Americans languish on NBA benches like old guys in the park feeding the birds.

You can't say the Redick critics, and they were legion, have been vindicated. Until his injuries clear up and he plays enough in practice to start to get his game back, Redick will remain an unanswered question. The early evidence screams "dud", but then again Mark Price (the NBA player Redick most reminds you of) averaged only 6 points a game in his rookie season with Cleveland before settling in to a consistent 15 ppg groove. The bottom line is that this season will likely be a write off and we won't be able to either praise or bury the young Ceasar until the 07' season.

But where have all the Redick haters gone? Why did they villify Reddick for four years in college, yet take no delight in highlighting his early NBA failings? It's an indication, and an interesting one, that NCAA basketball is bigger than the NBA. Duke is an easier team to hate than the Miami Heat, Dallas Mavericks, or Phoenix Suns. To many basketball fans, NBA players are hired guns playing an impure derivation of the real game.

Duke versus UNC is a war of good and evil to college fans. Redick was a central character in this intense drama. His game, his attitudes, his actions, even his whiteness became intensely important to people who make "March Madness", well, madness. Now Redick is another role player at the end of another corporate team bench in the giant sneaker ad that is the NBA. There is room for LeBron, Kobe, and Dwayne in this world, but not Jonathan Mark Redick. J J will have time to go to the concession stands for popcorn in the NBA this season. This bench is long, the pigeons plentiful.

When Boston College, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and Miami were added to the ACC there were people here in North Carolina who thought it would destroy the ACC. Football powerhouses in a basketball conference. The "Big Four" (Wake Forest, NC State, UNC, and Duke) would never go to another bowl. Life as we knew it would end, and our upright citizen student-athletes would be mugged in broad daylight by guys with low GPA's and criminal records that would make DIllinger blush with envy.

BC, Tech, FSU, and Miami were thinking they would roll over the Tobacco Road crowd and remain great football powers. No SEC problem of never winning the national title because of tough competition in conference. Start each season with 5 ACC wins a given, fill in with some non-conference walkovers, and all you had to do was win 2 of 3 competitive games. Life would be good, plus the basketball programs all got free upgrades. Win, win, and WIN!

The powers that be here in Greensboro (where the ACC is headquartered) figured with the realignment in bowls and advent of conference playoff games in football the time was right to create a 1-2 basketball/football punch no other conference could match. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!!!!!!!!!!

Here's where it went off the tracks:

We have some really, really bad football here in North Carolina. Wake Forest, a school with a student body about the size of Mayberry's population (with a similar pool of athletes), is the top Big Four football squad this year. UNC has already fired coach John Bunting, a spectacle much preferrable to having villagers with pitchforks parading his head on a stick through the streets of Chapel Hill (which was going to happen at some point). If Chuck Amato was Napoleon he would have recruited the finest of France and then got lost on the way to the battlefield. And Duke? Well, they've added a class on the ethics of sports euthanasia to the ciriculum. It's on the schedule right after, "Hating Western Civilization and the Bougasis Parents Who Subsidize Us."

What has happened to the newcomers is a classic case of falling in with a bad crowd. The North Carolina schools are so bad it's messing up the timing of the real football teams. Miami can't get arrested (well, not on the field). Virginia Tech had to let a player (Marcus Vick) go because he was incorrigible, which is about like the Gestapo handing walking papers to someone for having a bad disposition. When they talk about a fifth year eligible at Florida State, they are referring to parole status. And Boston College stumbles on still preparing for Syracuse out of habit and trying to figure out what bar-b-que and hush puppies is all about.

Virginia Tech, Miami, and FSU are historically renegade football programs that brought in players nobody else would touch. That competitive edge is going away because the schools have tried to clean up their programs at the same time the rest of college sports has lowered their standards. But I have faith that each school will respond to their recent adversity by digging a little deeper and lowering their standards even further. Order will be restored, and yes that means there is no hope that any Big Four school will ever again win 9 games in a season.

The real kicker is going to come when the wealthy alums at Duke and Carolina figure out that in roundball Boston College is not Georgia Tech or UVA, but a real power that isn't at all impressed with the banners in the rafters. Al Skinner is, in my heretical opinion, already likely the best basketball coach in the ACC and a threat to 15-501 axis of power.

The law of unintended consequences has reared it's ugly head and there is much disorder in the ACC. But, as Chairman Mao (a big sports fan and a snappy dresser) once observed, "There is great disorder under heaven, and the situation is excellent."