ACC Preview #16 - Duke, Part IV: The New Guys

Jon Scheyer has put together a very intriguing team

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As noted in Part III, Duke had massive losses after last season and yet more is expected of the Blue Devils this time around. Why?

Because the new guys, whether freshmen or transfers, should be really good.

The first name anyone wants to hear about is Cooper Flagg and from what we’ve seen of Flagg so far, the hype is justified.

The 6-9 Mainer has been called a generational talent and he backed that up at Peach Jam, where he absolutely killed it, and with the Select Team against Team USA in the run-up to the Paris Olympics, where he held his own against the best players in the world. Many of them praised him afterwards, talking about not just his talent but his lack of fear.

We’ll just say it now: prepare for the anti-hype. When Flagg doesn’t pop out of a phone booth with his cape on (Superman used to pop into these things called phone booths to change, kids. They were all over the place when we didn’t have cell phones), Duke haters will say he sucks or is overrated or whatever.

He’s going to be a load. At 6-9, he has obvious physical talent: he can run and jump and handle the ball.

He may not be as talented as his former Montverde teammate Sean Stewart, but for all his talent, Stewart couldn’t carve out a role at Duke last season because he didn’t understand the game, or Duke’s system, or perhaps both.

That won’t be a problem with Flagg. It’s conceivable that he might max out his physical talent sooner than expected, but the key to a guy like that is his desire. He wants to win and he wants to be great.

Not too long ago, his shot was seen as a weakness. Well, not as much so lately. He’s worked. In a running drill in August, Flagg beat everyone on the team - and he dove at the end to do it.

In a drill.

With apologies to Alan Iverson, it’s practice. We’re talkin’ about practice.

We met a guy who played D-II basketball once who told us we’d be surprised how many bigs don’t really love the game. They just play because they’re tall and are expected to. That’s so not Flagg.

He’s going to be good offensively and he’s going to get to the basket. Increasingly it looks like he’s significantly improved his perimeter game and he has no problems handling the ball.

As good as all that is, he’s a lethal force defensively. His lateral quickness is excellent. Reportedly he has a 40” vertical. Mike Krzyzewski has compared him to former NBA player Andrei Kirilenko, which is a good match. He also reminds us somewhat of Tom Chambers. Chambers was bigger than Flagg may ever be, and we don’t think he was a great defender, but he had a similar run/jump game.

It’s an unfair comparison, but his attitude and his toughness remind us a bit of Christian Laettner. He’s a hard-nosed kid. He’s going to have to deal with a huge amount of media pressure, not to mention the Duke haters and how he deals with that will be key.

Putting Flagg next to Khaman Maluach is almost unfair. We all saw the video this week of Maluach erasing Flagg’s shot twice - once outside the lane and once on a drive. What’s really striking on both blocks is how far away he is when he starts to hunt the shot. If you pause the video at :02, Flagg is about to shoot and Maluach’s hand is at least three feet away. By the time Flagg is starting to go up, his hand is already above the trajectory of the shot. Flagg realizes he’s about to get smoked and adjusts his shot so that his arms are at nearly a 90 degree angle.

Didn’t matter. Maluach got it - and he didn't throw it out of the gym, but tipped it up.

Flagg, who has played vastly more than Maluach, beat him to the loose ball and took it in for an easy basket. But Maluach was stalking him and caught him at the rim. This time he did throw the shot away, which was too bad because this time his hand was on top of the ball and if you can throw it, you can catch it. Nothing is more intimidating than just plucking a shot out of the air - nothing. That’s so demoralizing. Hopefully someone is speaking to Maluach about keeping the ball rather than giving it back.

Maluach, a Sudanese refugee who grew up in Uganda, has only been playing for a few years now and still has a lot to learn. Like his fellow countryman and predecessor at Duke Luol Deng, he often appears to be moving casually because his strides are so long.

He’s not.

At 7-2, Maluach is just beginning to glimpse his potential but like Flagg, he’s passionate about the game and improving. By March, he should be vastly better.

Note that we got to this point and haven’t really discussed his offense. He has great potential there too. We’d love it if someone could hook him up - pun intended - with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for some Skyhook tutorials. With a 7-9 wingspan, a Skyhook would be a devastating weapon. Several years of the Mikan Drill should do it.

They’re not the only freshmen of note. Kon Knueppel, 6-7, has gotten a ton of buzz this summer. When Caleb Foster interviews his teammates on the Brotherhood Podcast, he always asks who has impressed them the most and nearly everyone points to Knueppel.

His teammates have complimented his athleticism, his skill and his competitiveness. He’s also quite strong.

He’s from a basketball family, by the way, and there are four brothers behind him - Kager, Kinston, Kash, and Kidman

Isaiah Evans, 6-6 and nicknamed Slim for obvious reasons, is a very skilled offensive player. People like to compare him to Brandon Ingram because of his build, but Ingram is taller. He’s not really lean like he was at Duke - he looked like SpongeBob on Draft Day, all arms and legs - but it’s an understandable comparison.

Evans is more of a scoring guard. In high school, he averaged 27.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 2.4 steals, and 1.3 blocks per game. His high school, North Mecklenburg, also took down undefeated New Hanover to win North Carolina’s 4-A State Championship. Evans is quick and where Ingram was quiet, he’s fiery. He’s going to help a lot.

Darren Harris, 6-6, and Patrick Ngongba, 6-11, both come from Paul VI in Fairfax, Virginia, which has previously produced Jeremy Roach and Trevor Keels.

Harris is slightly behind some of his classmates in the high school rankings but he has a beautiful shot, he really does. We’d love to see him in the rotation. It’s possible that he needs to get stronger before becoming a key player though.

Ngongba may be slightly behind due to an injury last season but what we’ve seen of him is a physically mature 18-year-old - his birthday was Saturday. Like Knueppel, both of his parents played basketball which, unlike Maluach, means that he began learning as soon as he picked up a ball.

We understand that he had to lose some baby fat during the latter part of his high school career and that his injury last year may have set him back in two ways. He’ll get there but it may take a little while.

He may be Maluach’s backup this year but there may be times that his knowledge is more valuable than Maluach’s still-raw talent.

Coach Jon Scheyer picked up an interesting crop of transfers: all mature, all talented, and all physically imposing.

Maliq Brown, a 6-9 junior from Syracuse, is an excellent defender. He’s more likely to play forward but he can fill in at center as he did for the ‘Cuse last season. We think it was Flagg, or it may have been Knueppel, who praised his defensive savvy on the podcast, in particular how good he is at getting into the passing lanes. He may or may not start, but he’s going to play a lot.

Mason Gillis, a 6-6 grad student from Purdue, is a really good three point shooter. He’s also quite strong. We trust him defensively because he was usually the sixth man for Purdue and you have to play defense for Matt Painter or you don’t play.

Sion James, a powerfully built 6-6 grad student from Tulane, will play too. He was the point guard for the Green Wave and he’ll see time there at Duke. However, he can probably play three positions so he’ll be on the court somewhere. He’s highly athletic. Duke fans will love him.

Finally, there’s Cameron Sheffield. He’s most likely to be a reserve, but the 6-6 senior sat out last season so we don’t fully know what to expect from him. At a minimum, he should provide depth and versatility.

The team, to a large extent, has been built around Flagg, with an interesting mix of youth and experience. Scheyer has said more than once that he prefers an older squad and with the returnees and the transfers, he has experience to wrap around Flagg and the rest of the impressive freshman class.

What will he do with this talented squad? We’ll discuss that in Part V.