The first summer significant summer video from Duke Basketball is out and the first thing you have to say is the old joke you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.
Well that’s not entirely true. Malik Brown, with his signature long hair, is easy to spot and it’s easy to see Khaman Maluach, simply because he’s the only 7-2 guy on the court.
The only guys from last year of course are Caleb Foster (#1) and Tyrese Proctor (#5). Everyone else, other than Spencer Hubbard, Neil Begovich and Stanley Borden, is new. In fact, we’ll post a quick refresher at the end of this.
As we’ve noted rom time to time, this one of the biggest Duke teams in memory. The 1978 team was 6-11, 6-8, 6-8, 6-5 and 6-3, but that’s nothing like this group.
What’s most tantalizing is the defensive potential of the athleticism we see. We’ve mentioned before that Maluach’s vertical is reportedly not that great, but based on what we see here, it’s not that bad. Our thought is that getting into Duke’s highly sophisticated training system will really improve his game. It’s too early to see that but he looks fine here.
We get some small glimpses of Cooper Flagg doing Cooper Flagg things that we’ve seen a lot of but what was a lot of fun was seeing Kon Knueppel work his game. He’s not a skinny run/jump athlete - he’s pretty solid. But clearly he knows how to play. Watching him find his way at Duke is going to be very interesting. He’s a good three point shooter but it looks like he might be able to play a bit of bully ball too. Stay tuned.
We also see one keen pass from Patrick Ngongba which is not something that has been advertised. Isaiah Evans is really thin, but then again, so was Mike Dunleavy his first year (and today for that matter) and he did well as a freshman. In fact, in a highly unusual role, he was basically Duke’s entire bench that year until he got mono. That was how versatile that guy was.
Sion James, Malik Brown and Mason Gillis all played at high levels and give Duke a core of at least five experienced players they can turn to which will be helpful.
Anyway, it’s a fun video. Post your thoughts on the DBR Boards. This is going to be a fun group.
