Paul Pierce: Duke Can Beat the Cavaliers, but Not Kansas?

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Former Boston Celtics forward Paul Pierce.

There’s always somebody out there, who truly believes that good college teams, can beat bad pro teams. We will forever hear it. “The Alabama Crimson Tide can beat the Oakland Raiders!” But in this case, former Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce truly believes that Duke’s men’s basketball team can beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have the NBA’s worst record currently with one win, and ten losses.

Here we go again. It’s a crazy statement that seems believable, but at the end of the day, it’s just so outlandish. There’s really no way that an entire college team can beat a pro team, no matter how bad they are. It’s a different game mentally. The speed of the game is different, the knowledge between players would be like night and day, and it’s just obvious that a match between experienced grown men, and developing teens would go in favor of the pros.

It doesn’t matter how great Duke is at the NCAA level, they simply couldn’t compete at a high-level as a collective. No matter how much you or Paul Pierce wants to believe it, it just wouldn’t happen. But the craziest thing about it all though is that Pierce goes on to say that yes, Duke can beat Cleveland, but they can’t beat the Kansas Jayhawks. So, does that mean he thinks Kansas can beat Cleveland too? Nope.

Watch Pierce’s Reason Why

Apparently, the matchups between Duke and Cleveland would be favorable for Duke, but Kansas versus Cleveland wouldn’t go in the Jayhawks favor despite the fact that they are number one. So, Duke can beat an NBA team, but not the top team in the NCAA?

Okay, it just doesn’t make much sense. You can applaud Pierce for the effort, but that’s just bad analysis. Unfortunately, we will truly never know, since Cleveland won’t have Duke or Kansas on the schedule anytime soon. So, there’s really no point for this debate at all.