Duke basketball champ picks perfect name for unborn son

A Duke basketball great and his wife are expecting a son with a great name.

In 1980, Louisville wouldn’t have won its national championship in Indianapolis without the help of a high-scoring guard named Derek Smith. Tragically, he died of a heart attack in 1996, at the age of 34, while on a cruise with his family, including an 8-year-old son at the time who would one day become “The People’s Champ” for Duke basketball.

In 2010, Duke wouldn’t have won its national championship in Indianapolis without the help of said champ, a high-scoring guard named Nolan Smith. Yes, incredibly, 30 years after the dad had cut down nets in Indianapolis, the son did the same with his dad looking down from above.

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Nowadays, Nolan Smith is the director of basketball operations in Durham. Plus, he is married and is himself a dad to an infant daughter he affectionately refers to as Princess Cam Cam on his Instagram page, which is fitting in light of the fact his 65-2 overall record inside Cameron Indoor Stadium still stands as the best mark in the program’s history.

Another Duke basketball family member is on the way

It’s now become evident, though, that naming children just so happens to be another specialty of Nolan Smith. That’s no surprise considering his creative genius has been a major component to Duke’s uber-successful “Brotherhood” marketing campaign in recent years.

On Monday — National Son’s Day — the former ACC Player of the Year, who went No. 21 overall at the 2011 NBA Draft to the Portland Trail Blazers but then played only two seasons in the league, took to Instagram to announce that he and his wife, Cheyna, are having a son. Apparently, they already know the name, and there’s no doubt it’s a perfect one: Derek Indy Smith.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFr4RDeBj25/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The first name, of course, pays tribute to his father. The middle name, obviously, is a nickname for the city that served as the location of Nolan Derek Smith’s remarkably symbolic connection with the late Derek Ervin Smith. On top of that, “Indy” is Duke’s home away from home, in that three of its five national titles have come there, including the first in 1991 and the most recent in 2015.

Naturally, one question now comes to mind for Duke basketball fans: is it OK for Mike Krzyzewski to go ahead and offer a scholarship before the recipient is ever born?

If so, this would be an ideal case to do so. After all, Derek Indy Smith might have already helped the Blue Devils a great deal by possibly being a strong contributing factor to Nolan Smith turning down the assistant job at Memphis a few weeks back (a move such as that from his stable position at Duke would certainly have been a tough call with a second child on the way).

Good work, kid.

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