Former Duke basketball player ready to prove doubters wrong

No other draft entrant is as slept on as Duke basketball’s Cassius Stanley.

It’s not by accident that former Duke basketball one-and-done Cassius Stanley had an enormous amount of hype during his years in high school. It’s not too often you see a man with springs in his legs gracefully fly through the sky.

Some would say that he had a disappointing freshman season at Duke. However, I argue that isn’t the case one bit. The 2019-20 Blue Devils were a well-rounded team, one that didn’t have a definitive go-to guy. Some nights it would be Tre Jones, other nights it could be Vernon Carey Jr. To pin the responsibility of being a leading scorer on Cassius Stanley is unjust.

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Stanley had an impressive freshman season with averages of 12.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 1.0 assists per game while shooting 47.4 percent from the field. His freakish athleticism, along with his improving jump shot, just shows that having him slotted somewhere in the second round of the Nov. 18 NBA Draft is criminally underrating the 6-foot-6, 195-pound Los Angeles native.

A lot of what Stanley prides himself on as a player comes from his experience at Duke. In an interview with HoopsHype, when asked about the impact of being under the tutelage of Mike Krzyzewski, Stanley had a lot to credit him for:

“Everything was high level. He taught me and he taught all of us how to be real men and be professionals.”

A mentality that isn’t new to Duke basketball fans. For any GM who thinks about Cassius Stanley, the fact that he was groomed at Duke is going to play a positive factor.

In this day and age in basketball, the demand for athletes is at an all-time high. Teams are always looking for raw talent to develop into the next NBA star. Players such as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Pascal Siakam, and Bol Bol are all players that teams have invested a lot in to develop their skills. Hard to argue why Cassius Stanley doesn’t deserve the same treatment.

He has the highest vertical out of any Duke basketball player ever. Yes, even higher than Zion Williamson. Stanley topped Williamson’s record of 45 inches with a 46.5-inch leap at the beginning of the 2019 season. To me, that alone screams it’s worth putting effort into developing his skills.

Most every player who steps foot on the Duke campus plays with an inspiring motor and fire. Stanley already has that fire brewing inside of him. He is going to be another reminder to everyone to never doubt a Blue Devil again.

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