{"id":1254,"date":"2011-03-07T18:01:47","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T23:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capitalsports.us\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2011-03-08T00:31:57","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T05:31:57","slug":"smith-has-the-face-and-words-of-a-winner-coach-k-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=1254","title":{"rendered":"Smith has the face and words of a winner, Coach K says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Duke’s Nolan Smith has grown steadily over the years and now as a senior he’s ready to play in the NBA as a winner, Coach Mike Krzyzewski said today.<\/p>\n

“He has the face of a winner, then he has the words that a winner should speak,” Coach K said adding that he is more of a vocal leader than teammate Kyle Singler. “He’s a guy that every day imparts some guidance to his teammates. Not just how he talks, but how he looks – he’s been pretty poised the entire year.”<\/p>\n

Coach K says that Smith has been like a big brother to the younger players and he believes that’s one reason he has had such an outstanding senior year. Now he’s the only unanimous selection for the All-ACC First Team and is a sure-fire NBA player.<\/p>\n

“From his freshman year to now, Nolan’s probably progressed more than any player we’ve had here,” Coach K said. “He’s a Player of the Year candidate, and rightfully so. When he came in, he was really good. He didn’t start. Then he started a little bit. Then he didn’t start. It’s not like he was this instant star. He’s done it because he continually looks for ways to improve. Nolan has become a pro player this year.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Duke’s Nolan Smith has grown steadily over the years and now as a senior he’s ready to play in the NBA as a winner, Coach…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-duke-blue-devils","category-featured-stories","wpcat-82-id","wpcat-79-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1257,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions\/1257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}