At this point, it’s becoming cliché to talk about the chaotic nature of this off-season. The deck is being reshuffled across the country on an hourly basis and there’s no sign of it slowing down anytime soon. What may have caught a lot of longtime followers by surprise is that Duke is now officially the beneficiary of transfer news, and it’s not just one player. That’s right; Mike Krzyzewski is finally embracing the transfer portal, a rare sign of adaptation from the 74-year-old. Just in the last 24 hours, Duke managed to add two super seniors in Davidson’s Bates Jones and Marquette’s Theo John. The two will bolster a Duke roster that, after the news of Matthew Hurt’s departure, only featured three scholarship players at power forward and center.
After playing four years for the Davidson Wildcats, Jones will head to Durham for his fifth and final season of collegiate eligibility. He’s following in the footsteps of his brother, Daniel, who spent four years playing quarterback at Duke himself before being picked in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft by the New York Giants. Bates was never a star in his time at Davidson, but he did feature in the rotation as an upperclassman and even started five games in his career. The 6’8” power forward wasn’t a primary scoring option for the Wildcats when he was on the court, but he did shoot more than half of his career field goal attempts from three-point range and converted at a percentage higher than any returning player on Duke’s team shot in 2020-21. It seems unlikely that he’ll feature prominently in the rotation for the Blue Devils this coming season, but he does provide depth and experience for a team that only had one senior on the roster going into this week.
 |
| Jones will give Duke another frontcourt option off the bench in 2021-22. Source: Davidson College Athletics |
While Jones doesn’t figure to play much of a part in Duke’s plans for 2021-22, Theo John was a three-year starter for Marquette and the defensive backbone for Steve Wojciechowski’s Golden Eagles. The Marquette teams anchored by the Minnesota native were never stout defensively, but it was far from the fault of John. In his four seasons in Milwaukee, Theo put his 7'4" wingspan to good use, posting a career block percentage of 8.4%. For comparison, Marques Bolden posted a block percentage of 8.5% in 2018-19. As the previous entry about Hurt’s departure already mentioned, Duke only had one player they could count on for rim protection last season, and John will be a welcome addition to the roster in that regard.
On the offensive end, John is far more limited. He did see a modest increase in usage as a senior due to the departure of Markus Howard, but his output was still very minimal. He’s very well built at 6’9” and 245 pounds, but he’s not much of a finisher outside of the restricted area and his post repertoire could best be described as robotic. He turned the ball over on 22.5% of his possessions, which is far too high for someone a player in his role. To help paint a picture, it’s roughly equivalent to Javin DeLaurier’s career turnover percentage for Duke. On the bright side, he did improve his free throw percentage considerably from 56% as a junior to a very respectable 74% as a senior and even hit three out of four shots from three.
 |
| John could play a vital defensive role for Duke next season. Source: Marquette University Athletics |
With the slight uptick in offensive responsibility, other areas of John’s game dipped; his offensive rebound (7.3%), defensive rebound (14.3%), and block (6.0%) percentages were all career lows as a senior. Hopefully with a stronger group of talent around him at Duke, John can get back to doing what he does best. One could assume that a three-year starter in the Big East wouldn’t commit to Duke without at least some guarantees in terms of playing time and role definition, but Duke shouldn’t need John to do any of the things he isn’t already well suited to do. If he’s been brought in to be a low-usage backup to Mark Williams at the five, he’s a great pickup from the portal. The worst case scenario is that his signing was a panic move to fill the hole that could hypothetically be left by a surprise departure from Williams. While he’d obviously still be needed in that case, Williams’ exit would be the toughest pill to swallow yet this off-season for Blue Devil fans and would put a serious damper onto any championship aspirations.
Saying Duke’s roster is unlikely to change between now and the start of the 2021-22 season would be a foolish endeavor, but no matter what is still to come, Duke at least has taken the necessary steps to solidify its frontcourt. The one-time transfer rule is officially here to stay, and taking advantage of the portal is going to become second nature for all programs soon enough. The biggest positive for Duke is that it seems finally ready to use it as a positive way to bolster the roster and not just accept losing disgruntled players to it. They dipped their toes in last off-season with Patrick Tapé, and while his impact was minimal, the staff is thankfully not afraid to test the market again. If anything, the bar was set so low by the program’s first-ever graduate transfer that these two should have no problem coming in and making an impact.
No comments:
Post a Comment