There’s a long list of Duke basketball products hoping to find an NBA home.
Stay in school, kids. Perhaps that should be the pervading message right now after seven former Duke basketball players saw their time on an NBA roster come to an end — although potentially only temporarily for a few of them — all within the past few days.
Of those seven men, five bolted from Duke within the past five years with remaining eligibility. Four of them passed up multiple more years in college. And three were one-and-dones who seemed to need significantly more work before becoming professionals yet chose to leave just the same.
Maybe some of them received lousy advice from their inner circles. And maybe others would have never earned a long-term gig in the league no matter how long they might have stayed in Durham to hone their craft with the Blue Devils.
So for the first time in several years, it looks as if Duke will not set a new program record for NBA Blue Devils on opening day rosters (naturally, JJ Redick’s offseason retirement doesn’t help in this regard either).
Now, let’s look at each of the seven who got the boot, from oldest to youngest.