Duke Basketball: Coaches must be ready for Tre Jones’ possible departure

The Duke Basketball program has been the poster child for the ‘one-and-done’ world that college basketball is and the coaching staff must be prepared if a certain player decides to opt for the NBA.

Duke basketball freshman point guard Tre Jones is having a stellar season thus far and because of that, is playing himself into a one-and-done player. The 6-foot-2 point guard is starting to pop up in mock drafts and it’s looking more and more likely this will be his only season in Durham.

When Duke was recruiting Jones’ older brother, Tyus, the thought was that he would be at Duke for multiple years. That obviously didn’t happen as Jones left after just one season and was taken by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round and traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves on draft night.

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We could be seeing a similar situation playing out with the younger Jones brother and the coaching staff needs to act accordingly — something they didn’t do in 2015.

Duke did not recruit a point guard that year until late in the recruiting period. They would eventually sign Derryck Thornton, which turned out to be a disaster, and he would transfer to USC after only one season at Duke.

The next two seasons after Thornton saw Duke playing without a true point guard.

Frank Jackson, Luke Kennard and Grayson Allen played some point but they were better off the ball and Trevon Duval was technically a point guard, but bad decisions, 20.8% turnover rate, and awful shooting, 29% from 3-point range, outweighed any point guard abilities he had.

Duke would have at least one more title if they had a true point guard running the team the last two seasons and that’s completely on the coaching staff.

They didn’t properly prepare for Tyus Jones to leave after his freshman year and that is something that they cannot allow to happen again with Tre Jones.

As of right now Duke is not recruiting any point guards in the 2019 class and have a commitment from combo guard Boogie Ellis. Playing Ellis at point guard next season would be another year of Duke playing without a true point guard.

Besides Ellis, sophomore Jordan Goldwire will be back but he has not shown that he is capable of playing extended minutes.

Duke could go with the graduate transfer route but that is not something the coaching staff has been willing to do in the past but they might be forced to this time.

So, with Jones possibly leaving after the year, the coaching staff is either going to need to start recruiting one of the remaining unsigned point guards in the 2019 class or bring in a grad transfer because they cannot afford to play another season without a true point guard, especially during the final years of Mike Krzyzewski‘s tenure at Duke.