Congrats to KD. I hope he goes to a team that can be built around him and not be sent in to exhile like Garnett. The Minnesota Timberwolves may as well be the Siberian Timberwolves, because their players are just serving a gulag sentence.

This may not be a popular opinion, but the Celtics would be a great team for him. The Hawks, Grizzlies, Bobcats, Hornets, Clippers and Bucks are where promising careers go to die. My second choice would the 76'ers.

I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer, but the team is going to take a major step back next year. We should all prepare our selves for a really ugly season. I've tried to put lipstick on the leftover roster, but these guys are just too young and offensively challenged. Two years from now, they'll be good, but next year......

KD is like a great one night stand, you know you only have night with her, but you keep wishing for more.

can we and our children start droping homophobic slurs on his my space page? Oh yeah, we're not Aggies.

Make us proud in the NBA.

Anybody got some tape on this Balbay kid, I heard he is the second coming of Steve Nash?

He is seriously at the level of Vince Young to me. What a great person, too. The NBA is lucky to have someone of his character leading the way of upcoming superstars. Celtics, here we come! He's going to look good in that uniform.

Tear. Bittersweet day.

Like Kevin would have wanted.

Best of luck to KD in the NBA.  Being currently unaffiliated, whoever drafts him will probably be my new favorite team.

At least this doesn't sting near as bad as the day TJ left.

11 pm in my dorm room, pulling up ESPN and almost breaking my monitor when I saw the headline on the sidebar "Ford going pro."  Sad day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MLx-...

I think he made the right choice for himself.  Not for College Basketball, not for the BIG XII and not for texas, but for himself.  It's just hard for these players to turn down that kind of money IMO.  Like you said, he's putting his family into retirement.  How nice would that be to do when you're 18 years old.  Sure, he could stay another year(s) and make more money or win a national championship, but, there is some risk.  When you have 30-50 million on the line, I wouldn't want to take any risk.  

Now for KD, I think he'll regret it in say 10 years or at the end of his career.  I think it's going to be weird to be 18 and playing in the NBA.  Imagine what that does to your social life.  

Thankfully, texas is still good without KD, especially in a year or two.  He was not the whole team.  Well, perhaps sometimes this year...but I don't think he'll be missed too much in a year or two.

...about how much fun it would have been to watch this team win 30+ games and see basketball truly explode on this campus.  It was almost like the majority of students were ready to say hello to KD when it was actually time to say good-bye.  The A&M game couldn't have been a more fitting send-off from the Erwin Center, as 4000+ students were left without seats.  Fitting, in my opinion.

I have only the warmest wishes for KD and have no doubt about his future superstar status in the NBA...just wish he would have stayed one more year.

And I don't want him anywhere near Boston, as Simmons' hatchet job on Barnes got me into several arguments at the Big XII tournament in OKC and in phone conversations during the NCAA tournament...

in the NBA I will be a fan of.  I'll check boxscores after everygame.  Good luck to him.  I bet he goes for 15 and 7 his rookie year.  Nothing against Oden but I hope KD makes him look like Sam Bowie.

However, I don't understand the logic to using the Livingston injury as another reason. If I'm not mistaken, this is not the first time Livingston has suffered a knee injury. He's a completely different player... completely different body than KD. So now should every prospect go pro early just because of this one player that suffered a catastrophic injury? What is the probability that this happens to KD or anyone WHO DOESN'T HAVE A HISTORY of knee injuries?

Instead of looking at Livingston's injury, college players deciding to go pro or not should also look at the Florida team that just won it all. 3 sophomores came back to return. All of them stayed healthy, and they won it all. That is a more accurate prediction of what could happen if you return, not a severe injury.

I can't believe Augustin would even consider to go pro. But that's just me. Maybe he has financial concerns of his own.

It was fun while it lasted.  I knew that there was no logical reason for him to come back, but I hoped the joy of the college game might be enough.  I do think that another year of college would have benefited him, both personally and professionally.  KD seems like such a good and grounded kid.  Not to get too philosophical, but the NBA seems like a total grind and devoid of almost any joy of the game.

I'll never fault anyone for taking the megabucks when you have the chance, but the catastrophic injury angle is totally overplayed.  Think of all the truly great players that played multiple years of college ball (Magic, Bird, Kareem, Walton, Duncan).

is now confirming the sad but expected news about Durant in Chip Brown's latest.

Didn't I just read somewhere that the NCAA is raising the amount of insurance that can be provided to $20 million? That should allow Durant's parents (and him) to retire quite comfortably should the worst come about.