Duke basketball: The 10 greatest NBA Blue Devils of all time
By Matt Giles
All-time top 10 Duke basketball pro: No. 8 Jack Marin
Opposite of JJ Redick, the best seasons of Jack Marin came before his 30th birthday. And like so many others who don’t age quite as remarkably as Redick, Marin was out of the NBA by the age of 33. Yet in his heyday, which primarily consisted of the first half of the 1970s, Marin was a bigger scoring threat than Redick has been in any season.
The Duke basketball legend, who helped the Blue Devils to two Final Four trips before going No. 5 overall at the 1966 NBA Draft to the Baltimore Bullets, averaged 19.7 points in just his fourth season in the league. And Marin did so for a top contender at the time while sharing touches with the likes of NBA greats Wes Unseld, Earl Monroe, Gus Johnson, and Kevin Loughery.
Two seasons later (1971-72), with Monroe off to the New York Knicks, Marin averaged 22.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 2.2 assists while shooting 47.8 percent from the field and an uber-impressive 89.4 percent from the foul line. In all, his NBA career spanned 11 years, with the 6-foot-6 forward playing 70 or more games in every season except his last.