What’s all this talk I head about roster construction?
No, this isn’t an Emily Litella commentary.
Roster construction has always been part of a college coach’s job. It’s a crucial intersection of talent, experience, chemistry, depth, understanding and filling a role and probably a few things I haven’t thought about..
A well-constructed roster would have a versatile big man like Christian Laettner, a wing like Grant Hill, a savvy and skilled point guard like Bobby Hurley, a spot-up shooter like Thomas Hill.
Hey, if it was easy, everyone would do it.
And the job has gotten harder and harder in recent years.
Mike Krzyzewski didn’t have to worry about NIL, the transfer portal, one-and-dones when Duke was going to seven Final Fours in a nine-year period, winning two of them. Recruit the best players he could, subject to roster needs and fit and academics and go from there. He got four years out of Johnny Dawkins and Danny Ferry and Laettner and Hurley and Grant Hill and Shane Battier. Duke fans became somewhat smug about the whole thing, as if Duke had some kind of magic barrier that protected Duke from the NBA, while ACC rivals said premature good-byes to the likes of Jerry Stackhouse and Antawn Jamison and Dennis Scott and Kenny Anderson and Joe Smith and Chris Washburn and Kenny Green.
There were some unpleasant surprises, Billy McCaffrey transferring from Duke weeks after making the 1991 All-Final Four team leading the way.
But for the most part we knew next season’s roster around the time a season ended.
That paradigm came crashing down after the 1999 season when the lure of the NBA claimed sophomores Elton Brand and William Avery and freshman Corey Maggette.
Still, Duke usually got multiple years from even its best players. Jason Williams was consensus national player of the year as a junior, J.J. Redick as a senior. Duke got three years from Mike Dunleavy, Carlos Boozer, Shavlik Randolph and Gerald Henderson, two from Josh McRoberts.
Krzyzewski usually filled whatever holes appeared with high-school recruits. In-coming transfers were rare and were specifically targeted. Roshown McLeod took Joey Beard’s place. Dahntay Jones took Maggette’s. Seth Curry took Elliot Williams’, Rodney Hood took Michael Gbinije’s. Four transfers in from 1981 through 2013. All four became All-ACC, all four played in the NBA.
I’m not sure how Sean Obi fits in with this narrative. We never saw him with healthy knees.
By the time Obi came and went Duke was a one-and-done machine. But Krzyzewski replaced the Jabari Parker’s and Jayson Tatum’s of the world with comparable high-school players, not transfers.
Even when the landscape shifted and grad-student transfers could play without sitting out a year and then when the transfer portal became a thing and NIL became a thing and Jon Scheyer became head coach, Duke, arguably the highest-profile program in the country, has continued to build its roster largely through the prep ranks. Since sitting out a year became a thing of the past Duke has brought in Patrick Tape (2021), Theo John (2022), Bates Jones (2022), Jake Grandison (2023), Kale Catchings (2023) and Ryan Young (2023, ‘24), all grad students.
John, Grandison and Young all helped Duke win games.
But none came close to being stars. The 6.2 points per game Young averaged in the 2022-’23 season is the highest from any Duke transfer under the new protocols.
By contrast Wake Forest has had a transfer make first-team All-ACC each of the last three years. Duke’s 2022 season ended in large part because they couldn’t handle UNC’s Brady Manek, a transfer from Oklahoma. The 2024 season ended at the hands of an NC State team, whose seven-player rotation included not a single player who started his college career at NC State; State is the third school for D.J. Horne and D.J. Burns.
Does Duke need to change?
We may find out soon.
From day one Scheyer has said that he wants Duke to get older. There are two ways that can happen.
The first is to have freshmen become sophomores, sophomores become juniors, juniors become seniors.
The second is to hit the portal and find some 22-year-olds hankering for a chance to get a Duke degree, wear Duke blue and get some of that NIL money.
And win championships.
Yes, the NIL part of the equation is real and it isn’t going to go away. Duke seems to have a handle on NIL after a slow start. But I’m not sure bidding wars are Duke’s style.
Obviously, it’s not that binary. A combination of the two ways to get older is possible and that may be what Scheyer is aiming for.
It’s also obvious that a junior in his third year in the program is preferable to an equally talented junior in his first year in the program.
Scheyer addressed roster construction after the Elite Eight loss and left no doubt where he stands.
“We’re going to continue to adjust and adapt with all that. But you’re always looking for balance. When you have our team this year, when you have a Filipowski, when you have a Mitchell, a Proctor, those guys came back. You always want to build from within, if you can. Getting those guys returning, where you have a relationship, you’ve been through some battles together, there’s always value in that.”
Let’s go to the scorecard.
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