A pair of beloved Duke basketball alums suddenly see new life in the NBA.
Ten years ago, only about a dozen Duke basketball names were on an NBA roster to start the season. Twenty years ago, the count was under 10. Thirty years ago, that number was under five. Fast forward to last year, and it had reached 25.
Now, the NBA Blue Devils are likely to set a new program record once again when the 2020-21 season gets going on Dec. 22. And with Quinn Cook and Amile Jefferson suddenly back in the conversation, Duke could even flirt with 30 (the most NBA products ever from a school in any given year, which Kentucky boasted at the beginning of the 2019-20 campaign).
Adding to the thrill for Cook and Jefferson is the fact that they each inked deals last week with title contenders.
Cook wound up re-signing with the Los Angeles Lakers. This came roughly two weeks after the defending champions had informed the four-year league veteran — a 27-year-old backup guard who owns two title rings to go along with his national title in 2015 as a Duke basketball senior — that they would not be bringing him back for his contract’s non-guaranteed 2020-21 season.
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Jefferson, another 2014-15 Blue Devil, signed an Exhibit 10 deal with Boston, meaning he’ll see a shot to compete for a spot on the 15-man roster. Five days prior, another former Duke teammate to Jefferson, Celtics star Jayson Tatum, responded “Sign him!!!” to a tweet about the 27-year-old forward, whose NBA experience consists of 30 games for the Orlando Magic since 2018.
Neither Duke basketball champ contributed much in 2019-20
This past regular season, Cook played in only 44 games for Los Angeles, averaging career-lows with 5.1 points and 1.1 assists in 11.5 minutes per game. He then saw action in only six of the squad’s 21 playoff games, totaling 13 points and five assists in 24 minutes.
Meanwhile, Jefferson played in 18 games across the 2019-20 regular season, averaging 0.8 points and 1.3 rebounds in 4.1 minutes per outing for a Magic team that eventually lost in the first round of the playoffs. He has still never been on the floor for a single minute in the postseason.
Now, considering that the Lakers and Celtics are again top-tier threats, assuming Quinn Cook and Amile Jefferson are both on the rosters for their respective franchises come next postseason, there’s a decent chance they could face each other in the NBA Finals. Of course, even if that’s the case, there’s also a decent chance neither would come off the bench in the series.
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