Duke basketball champ botches his all-time Blue Devil lineup
By Matt Giles
Warning: This all-time Duke basketball lineup comes with glaring omissions.
Duke basketball great Jason Williams — nowadays, the ESPN hoops analyst goes by “Jay” — recently appeared on the BroBible Endless Hustle podcast with Matt Keohan and Arthur Kade. During the chat, the 2001 national champion reeled off what he believes would represent the five greatest past Blue Devils on the court together.
In doing so, Williams made a couple of profound mistakes, even though he argues otherwise. We’ll get to those massive misjudgments here in a minute as we examine the former guard’s five selections one by one. First, let’s begin with one of the picks Williams definitely got right: himself.
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Look, Williams remains the lone Blue Devil in history to exceed 2,000 points (2,079) in only three seasons (1999-00 through 2001-02). Plus, the 6-foot-2, 195-pound aggressive playmaker was clutch, most memorably by scoring eight points in only 13.1 seconds to spark the 2001 “Miracle Minute” that utterly stunned Maryland on its home court.
At the same time, Williams was consistently a proficient distributor, never averaging less than five assists per game as a three-year starter on his way to becoming the 2002 Naismith Award winner and then the No. 2 overall pick at the 2002 NBA Draft. As for his prowess as a defender, the New Jersey native remains the only Blue Devil to have never averaged less than two steals per game.
Now, let’s look at Williams’ preferred perimeter partner in this hypothetical lineup, an obvious overvaluation on his part…