Duke basketball recruiting: Blue Devils neglect necessary piece

By focusing too much energy on compiling classes consisting of primarily only the best of the best, the Duke basketball coaches are missing out on the hidden-gem assassins among the rest.

Simultaneously solving the Duke basketball program’s high turnover rate and recent shooting woes may require scrolling farther down the 247Sports 2020 Composite — maybe even off the ranking altogether.

Why? As the years go by, rankers and pro scouts increasingly value the physical measurements pointing to a guard’s NBA potential while overlooking what often matters most to college success: shooting percentages.

Just look at the 247Sports recruiting profile from 2008 for former Blue Devil sharpshooter Seth Curry: no ranking, no stars, not even a mugshot. Despite mediocre-at-best athleticism and length, look what he did after transferring from Liberty to Duke: 13.2 points per game while hitting 42.0 percent from deep.

And look at where Curry is now: coming off a season as a key weapon off the bench for the Western Conference finalist Portland Trail Blazers and ranking just ahead of older brother Steph — a three-star out of high school — at No. 1 among all active NBA players in terms of career 3-point percentage (43.9).

Speaking of 3-pointers, the 2018-19 Duke basketball team fell short of a final four almost exclusively as a result of having attempted more shots from beyond the arc than all but one of its predecessors while only making 30.8 percent. This mark was atrocious enough to rank 329th in the nation and last among every Blue Devils squad in history — a whopping eight percentage points shy of any of the program’s five national champs.

Next season, Duke welcomes five-star 2019 power forward Matthew Hurt, who boasts a reputation as a wizardly shooter from all distances. That being said, the 6-foot-9, 215-pound Minnesota native may serve as the only consistent threat from downtown.

After all, Mike Krzyzewski refused last season to play then-freshman wing Joey Baker more than 18 minutes total. Plus, the 40th-year Duke basketball head coach has refused for two seasons thus far to play now-junior guard Alex O’Connell more than 15 minutes per game — despite a career 3-point percentage of 41.6.

So what happens if Hurt bolts for the NBA next spring? Well, without spending enough time to scout and land one or two of the Curry’s of the world hiding out either near the end or outside the 2020 rankings, Duke’s dismal outside shooting could continue to loom as a roadblock to the ultimate goal.

The staff’s two 2020 pledges to date, five-star point guard Jeremy Roach and five-star small forward Jalen Johnson, are fantastic at creating opportunities for perimeter shooters by driving and kicking — not so fantastic at knocking down perimeter shots themselves.

ALSO READ: The critical recovery of 2020 Duke pledge Jeremy Roach

So who will Roach and Johnson pass to after arriving at Duke for the 2020-21 season?

Well, offers are on the table to a pair of five-star 2020 gifted shooters: combo guard D.J. Steward and small forward Ziaire Williams. Of course, it’s possible neither ends up in Durham; plus, as with almost all five-stars these days, neither has much of a chance to stick around more than one or two seasons.

Furthermore, not specifically referring to Steward or Williams, but the more stars a teenager has — and the more he hears experts saying his game is already worth millions as is — the more likely he is to become complacent when it comes to fine-tuning his shot.

Coach K and his assistants would benefit from discovering a couple of kids — preferably lifelong Duke fans — who refuse to sleep until after stroking a thousand shots a day. Problem is, though, the perfect archetype of such a player, Duke basketball legend and all-time leading scorer J.J. Redick, wouldn’t likely be a five-star nowadays and, due to his heavy feet and short arms, might not even rank among the top 100.

ALSO READ: The three greatest showmen in Blue Devils history

Simply put, if the coaches spend too much time centering their attention on only the most elite 2020 recruits, some coach for a smaller school is likely to find today’s Redick or Curry and then use his sweet stroke to knock a future five-star Duke basketball squad out of the Big Dance before the final weekend.

Harsh. But true.

Stay tuned to Ball Durham for more Duke basketball recruiting updates, analyses, opinions, and predictions.