Duke basketball: Top 10 ACC players for 2020-21 season
By Matt Giles
No. 3 in the ACC this season is a second Duke basketball player
Forward. Jalen Johnson. player. 434. Scouting Report. Pick Analysis. Freshman. 3
It’s true that Jalen Johnson, who as a five-star prep ranked as high as No. 3 overall on the 247Sports 2020 Composite but finished at No. 13, has the necessary frame, athleticism, and alpha mentality to potentially end up a spot or two higher than No. 3 among his conference peers this season.
In other words, the 6-foot-9, 220-pound Johnson will undoubtedly begin the year in the running for ACC Player of the Year.
Even so, it’s also true that Johnson enters what will likely be a one-and-done layover in Durham with a sufficient number of vivid question marks to potentially drop him from the All-ACC conversation altogether…
Will Johnson’s somewhat shaky 3-point shot take away from the rest of his repertoire and add unnecessary pressure on his fellow Blue Devils to hit shots? Will the pressure from being a perceived centerpiece to a young Duke basketball team force the forward to try to do too much at times and then to ultimately crumble in losing times?
We’ll just have to wait and see how those answers, and others, play themselves out for Jalen Johnson. But the more times one replays his high school mixtapes — paying special attention to his beyond-his-years passing game and his knack for collecting rebounds — the easier it becomes to believe his overall commanding presence will pose some major problems for ACC opponents.