Duke Basketball: Excessive outside shots doom Blue Devils’ potential

If the Duke basketball players don’t minimize the types of shots they’re basically lousy at — speaking primarily of those from deep — their season won’t end in an April win.

One glaring issue that stems from the No. 1 Duke basketball team having multiple freshmen starters auditioning to be a top draft pick appears to be their need to prove that they’re exactly what the modern NBA is looking for: a guy who can shoot from outside as if he’s a starter for the Golden State Warriors.

Here’s an obvious observation: In terms of stroking the three, the Blue Devils do not have anyone who even remotely resembles Steph Curry.

But a quick look at the number of 3-pointers the group jacks up implies that too many of them think they’re at their best when hanging out downtown.

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A snapshot of the problem came during the Blue Devils’ 87-65 win at Wake Forest on Tuesday night. Against the lowly Demon Deacons, the team made only seven of its 23 downtown attempts, more than half of which came in the first 15 minutes — that, in part, helped keep the score close for about 15 minutes longer than it should have been.

Duke is averaging 24.4 attempts from long distance for the season. That mark is higher than that of all but one season in program history: 2000-01 (27.1 attempts per game). Yes, that team went on to hang a championship banner inside Cameron Indoor Stadium. No, this team does not share the same overall shooting abilities.

That team hit 38.5 percent of its 3-point attempts. This team is making just 32.2 percent to date — on pace to be the worst percentage of any Duke team in history.

Think about it another way: The Blue Devils are on pace to average more 3-point attempts than any of the squads that included J.J. Redick and more than any of the squads that included Trajan “The Alaskan Assassin” Langdon.

That makes no sense.

Or here’s another way to look at it: Golden State, with a shorter shot clock, averages 0.67 attempts from deep per minute while this Duke team averages 0.61.

Again, it makes no sense for those two numbers to even be in the same ballpark.

In other words, the sooner freshmen Tre Jones, Cam Reddish, R.J. Barrett, and Zion Williamson realize they are not Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, and Draymond Green, the sooner they will maximize their unique potential.

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The four freshmen combine for exactly two-thirds of all the Blue Devils’ 3-point attempts, and the problem with that is that none of them connect on more 34 percent.

Most of the other third of Duke’s shots from deep come from junior co-captain Jack White, who has hit 39.6 percent of his 53 attempts this season, and sophomore guard Alex O’Connell, who has hit 35.3 percent of his 34 attempts.

So far, Duke’s only outside shot that seems naturally easy to trust is a corner bomb from White.

Speaking of shots that are easy to trust, though, that’s exactly what these freshmen-laden Blue Devils should stick to attempting…

Dunks and scoop shots from Williamson. Layups and dunks from Barrett. Floaters and finger rolls from Jones. As for Reddish, his money move still remains a bit of a mystery.

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Now, all this being said, Duke has proven to find its strength on offense, which always stems from its ramping up the defensive effort, before the end of each and every game this season — even during its 89-87 loss, which was nearly a huge comeback win, to Gonzaga in Maui back in November.

But why not just start out with a focus on finding easy buckets before jacking up ill-advised 3-point attempts?

Here’s a proposed rule for each game: With the exception of Jones, each Duke basketball player must flush his first dunk before he jacks up his first deep ball.

Problem solved.

As soon as the Blue Devils show signs of sticking to that rule, Duke fans should go ahead and book the early-April flight to Minneapolis.

Hopefully, a less-trigger-happy group of Blue Devils (13-1) shows up to play at No. 13 Florida State (12-2) on Saturday at 2 p.m. (on ESPN).