Full extension. Unbelievable vertical. Perfect acceleration. Powerless defenders. Charisma off the charts. Durant to Westbrook: The best alley-oop we’ve seen all season.

Assist, Eye on Basketball.

On Friday, sources said there was a good possibility Austin Rivers was leaving for the NBA. By Monday, he’d made it official. He’s going the Kyrie Irving route — the second standout Duke freshman in two years to leave coach Mike Krzyzewski’s program after just a season. Come November, he’ll be in the pros with his dad, Celtics coach Doc Rivers.

Rivers won ACC freshman of the year in a landslide and earned all-ACC honors — the first freshman in the conference to do so since Tyler Hansbrough in 2006. He also knocked down arguably the most memorable shot in college basketball this season — a jaw-dropping, buzzer-beating three to beat rival North Carolina in February — proving he has more than pedigree on his side when it comes to transitioning to the pro game.

The skeptic in me would like to see Rivers learn to become a better distributor before heading to the next level — to say he was a ball-stopper in his season at Duke would be like saying Schmidt from New Girl is “kind of a douchebag.” But really, Rivers was never going to be a prototypical NBA point guard anyway.

Here are three reasons he’s ready to play in the pros:

1. His confidence — Have you seen this guy play? Have you read any of his quotes? Have you been on his Twitter page? Rivers doesn’t just think a lot of himself. He’s in love with himself. Like I Love You, Man, Superbad-level bromance love. The kind of love where I’m surprised he hasn’t coined a Brangelina-esque nickname for every time he looks in the mirror. AuRiver. Hello, self. Damn we’re looking good today.

Confidence can be a good or a bad thing in the NBA (Kobe Bryant on one end of the spectrum, somebody like Nick Young on the other), but you can’t be a great player without it. And Rivers has more confidence than a Formula One driver on peyote. Age-wise, he’s a pup. But he won’t be afraid to mix it up with the big dogs at the next level.

2. His skill level — I have this conversation all the time with my buddy TD. There are two kinds of stars at the college level: the ones who have what it takes to thrive against better competition (i.e. bigger, faster, stronger players in the NBA), and the ones who are destined to be remembered as great college players.

Juan Dixon. Sean May. Adam Morrison. Jimmer Fredette in four years. Those guys all fall into the latter category — players with a few specific skills that made them legendary in the college ranks but couldn’t carry them into the NBA because taller, more athletic defenders ate them alive.

Austin Rivers falls squarely into the former category, though. He has skills that will translate to the pros. His first step, for instance, and his ability to get off tough shots in traffic. As I mentioned before, he doesn’t have a great sense of court vision, but he does have good court awareness. He handles the ball confidently and knows where the holes in a defense are, and he has the body control to finish plays against bigger defenders at the rim.

Critics will point to Rivers’ sub-45 percent field goal percentage as a reason he’s not ready, but what stands out more to me is his 5.4 trips on average to the free throw line and his competency from the perimeter (he shot 37 percent from three).

At 6-foot-4, he has enough size to play 2-guard in the NBA, so don’t put too much stock in his poor assist-to-turnover ratio. And don’t poo-poo his bad shooting performance against Lehigh too much either. As a freshman, he had just three stinkers (Michigan St., Georgia Tech and Clemson), and that’s par for the course. Plus, Seth Curry had an awful game against Lehigh too. It was the combination that caused Duke to lose.

Defensively, Rivers gets lost a lot on switches, and he has the tendency to get caught watching. He’s not a good defender. He does have sneaky athleticism, though. He won’t be any worse at defending his position than, say, Thomas Robinson will be at defending his.

3. His support system — As Doc’s son, Austin grew up around NBA players. It won’t be as hard for him to acclimate to the culture or the lifestyle or the expectations because he’s already been living around that or with that for years. He’s the Colin Hanks of the NBA.

Where the situation does get dicey is the potential for Austin to wind up on the Celtics. The idea is relatively far-fetched since the Celtics won’t be drafting in the lottery and Austin (as well as some draft prognosticators) fancies himself a lottery pick.

The speculation alone will create pressure and the kinds of mania that comes with a braggadocios prodigy whose father coaches in a league his son’s about to play in. But Doc is a politician with the media. He is of them and by them, and he seems to have handled the speculation well so far. Even if the situation turns explosive, he’ll be able to mentor Austin through the ups and downs of it, unlike, say, the Harrison Barnes camp.

With Doc as his mentor, I see Rivers’ transition to the NBA turning out similar to Steph Curry’s under the tutelage of his dad, Dell, also a former NBA player. Just with, you know, fewer ankle injuries and a little more swagger.

The league has called Williams into the principal’s office. He’ll meet with NFL officials in New York on Monday and will likely face a verdict (some say Roger Goodell’s harshest punishment to date) shortly after.

In honor of the proceedings, here are five NBA players I would never put a bounty on…

5. Dwight Howard — You’ve seen him without a shirt on. He’s like the Terminator, except if the Terminator had a mega-watt smile and stole all of his nicknames from previous bounty hunters. Plus Dwight’s notorious for not missing games. You’d just be wasting your time.

4. Shelden Williams — Six seasons in the league and a smoking hot, basketball-playing wife despite possessing not a shred of NBA talent. This man has God on his side. You do not want to be messing with him.

3. Anyone on the Nets — You’ve heard the rumors about Mikhail Prokhorov, right? Mafia connections. Ties to Vladimir Putin — who Prokhorov just lost to in Russia’s presidential election. Russian sex parties that make ‘Project X’ look like a Bristol Palin baby shower. Would you mess with any of the players on his team? Yeah, neither would I.

2. Nenad Kristic — That dude will throw a chair at your head.

1. Kobe Bryant — Not because he’d Google Map your address, break into your house, strangle your dog, beat your kids, complete the trinity with your wife and erase your DVR recordings — all of which he would do. But because it’s pointless. The guy completed the All-Star game (a senseless exhibition!) with a broken nose and a concussion. Nothing short of two broken legs could keep this man off the court, and no bounty hunter (not even Dog) is capable of that on a court of basketball. Tip of the cap to you, Black Mamba. You’re not just tough. You’re bounty-proof.

Five reasons to celebrate Kobe Bryant’s stint as “The Masked Mamba,” which comes to us courtesy of the following hard foul by Dwyane Wade in the third quarter of last Sunday’s All-Star Game:

5. Provides yet another excuse for his fourth-quarter tunnel vision.

4. Doubles as a great halftime diversion for Metta World Peace.

3. Adds further absurdity to the dumbest (self-appointed) nickname in sports.

2. There’s finally a second member of the All-Assholes with Face Masks Team!

1. Let’s face it. We all needed a break from The Kobe Face.

Assist to The Hoop Doctors for the face mask pic.

Assist, Deadspin.

Below are video highlights from LBJ’s introductory Drew League experience.

Assist, SLAM.

To steal a line from GZA, this dunk was the thriller in the Ali-Frazier Manila. See below.

Assist, Hardwood Paroxysm.

Rivers recently had his first practice with Duke in preparation for the Blue Devils’ exhibition tour to China and Dubai in August. Here’s what he had to say about Coach K and his experience with the team so far, courtesy of The Herald-Sun‘s Steve Wiseman:

“The first two practices were real rough. They were yelling at me, getting on me, telling me things I never knew before. But that’s why I chose Duke. I felt like they wouldn’t cheat me of that. A lot of colleges I could have gone to maybe would have said nothing or let me get away with it because of who I was. Coach K knows what the hell he’s talking about.”

I realize quotes are just quotes and athletes are coached regularly on what to say to the press so that they’ll be portrayed in a positive light, even so this is quite an impressive statement from Rivers.

If he’s serious — if there’s no B.S. there — I think he’s going to turn out to be a helluva good player. There’s respect behind those words. Respect and a healthy dose of self-awareness, something players Rivers’ age rarely have.

As a two-time state champion and the consensus high school player of year, he certainly has star potential. Having Doc Rivers’ genes doesn’t hurt either. I like to think of Austin as the college basketball version of Diggy Simmons: a hard worker from a great pedigree (Diggy’s the son of Run DMC legend Rev Run) with enough spark and charisma to step out of his dad’s shadow and be a bona fide star.

If Austin keeps his head right, and it seems like he’s going to, I can see him turning out to be the biggest star Duke’s ever produced. Sorry, Trajan Langdon.

Either way, this is a kid to keep an eye on. You’ll be hearing a lot about him here at Basketball Fiend in the months to come.

There’s no questioning Rivers’ skills though. He proved that once again Wednesday with a killer crossover on NC State guard Lorenzo Brown during the NC Pro-Am. Made the jumper too. Check it out.

That’s a grown man move right there. Especially considering Brown is no slouch. Draft Express rated him the 27th best freshman in the country last year. He played in 31 games for the Wolf Pack, averaging 9.3 points and 3.7 assists per game. And Rivers made him look like a 12-year old ice skating for the first time.

Impressive stuff.