kyrie irving jump and shooting marisa miller in cherry blossom festival

Duke’s Kyrie Irving missed most of the college season with a foot injury, came back in the NCAA Tournament and quickly established himself as the best player on the Blue Devil team again.

That was good enough for scouts — he is pretty much the consensus No. 1. He’s the one guy in this draft Jonathan Givony of Draft Express says could be a franchise changer (in a good way, don’t worry some GMs will find some franchise changers of the other kind in this draft). Irving has the complete game you want in a point guard.

And it looks like he is going to enter the draft, reports Chad Ford at ESPN’s draft blog.

We should be getting updates soon from a number of the top underclassmen. Sources say Kyrie Irving is leaning strongly toward declaring for the NBA Draft and should be making an announcement soon. Ditto for Baylor’s Perry Jones, UConn’s Kemba Walker and Kentucky’s Terrence Jones.

Duke fans can say Irving should get a full year of college ball if they want, but the fact is if you are going to be the top overall pick (or even are in the lottery) you make the move and go pro.

That said, the coming lockout is the big issue. Enter the draft, get picked, then you will sit and wait around until the labor situation is resolved. Which could be into the NBA season. Then when things start up training camps will be reduced in time, so there will be less time to learn the team’s system and adjust to the NBA game.

The lockout may keep some players in school. But apparently not Irving.