By Brian A. Lester

(Editor's Note: this is a contributed article. Views are those of the writer.)

Mike Dunleavy Jr. could very easily be the man at Duke right now.

He could be using his mad basketball skills to give opponents migraine headaches and drive the crazies inside stuffy Cameron Indoor Stadium absolutely bonkers.

Instead, a baller who had the potential to be one of the top college basketball players in the country this season as a senior is at Golden State playing under a spotlight that is as dim as a set of football stadium lights with only one bulb.

Dunleavy is averaging a meager 4.7 points per outing through Thanksgiving Day and is nowhere near reaching the superstar status he enjoyed with the Blue Devils.

There has to be days when he wonders if he even made the right decision. That perhaps it was a mistake to leave Duke for the pros only to lose more games in one week than he lost during an entire season in Durham.

I sincerely believed Dunleavy would do OK for himself as a pro right out of the gate. I figured his background in the game of basketball and the fact that his dad was a coach in the league would serve him well at the next level.

So far, however, playing for Golden State is a nightmare that not even millions of dollars from being the third pick in the draft can ease the pain of.

The Warriors have only four wins through their first 15 games and it's not too early for the front office of the Warriors to start printing NBA Lottery tickets because it sure as heck won't be printing playoff tickets anytime soon.

Some might be ready to say that Dunleavy is doomed to become another great Duke player who never quite cut it in the NBA.

But Dunleavy has potential and he has shown it at times. He dropped a career-high 15 points on the Clippers and buried five treys against the red-hot Mavericks.

Remember? Dunleavy was a lifesaver for the Blue Devils in the 2001 national championship game against Arizona, exploding for 21 points, including an 18-point outburst in the second half.

Getting back to that high level of basketball might take work, but Dunleavy is quite capable of becoming a good player in this league.

It's just going to take time.

For now, he'll have to settle for being just another player earning a paycheck instead of the top dog at Duke.

Brian Lester is a sportswriter in Ohio and can be reached via e-mail at BAL4@hotmail.com.