Cameron Boozer immediately proving Will Wade’s desperate gamble wrong is why he’s the No. 1 pick

It’s no secret that for the second year in a row, a Duke freshman will win be the National Player of the Year. In some ways, Cameron Boozer has arguably one-upped Cooper Flagg’s stellar freshman year, averaging 22.6 points, 10 rebounds, and 4.0 assists to Flagg’s 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists a year ago. 

There are 100 reasons why Boozer is the deserving POTY and why he’s currently a -4000 favorite to take home the hardware, but he added a few more in Monday night’s 93-64 demolition of NC State in Raleigh with a 26 point performance on 8-10 shooting with nine rebounds and three assists.

It wasn’t just his statistical output that reasserted his dominance, it was NC State head coach Will Wade’s desperate gamble. After not playing a minute of zone defense all year, Wade, whose team allowed 90 points to Virginia nad 96 points to Notre Dame in consecutive losses last week, opted to sit in a zone for the full 40 minutes against the Blue Devils. 

There is no answer for Cameron Boozer and NC State learned that the hard way

Wade admitted to ESPN’s Cory Alexander that his team simply could not match up with Duke’s size man-to-man. The Blue Devils average over 6-foot-6, and NC State isn’t the only team that has been daunted by their length across the board. 

So, in some sense, Wade’s gamble was worth the risk because maybe Duke would go cold from the outside and get caught off guard by the unfamiliar look. He was right early as NC State kept the game close through the first 10 minutes. Boozer’s first points came at the 9:48 mark of the first half to break an 18-18 tie. That’s right about when he and his teammates cracked the code, and from that point, they outscored the Wolfpack 75-46. 

NBA evaluators will love how quickly Boozer figured out the zone defense. As a 6-foot-10 offensive hub with great passing instincts, he’s an ideal zone breaker. However, it wasn’t just his passing from the middle of the floor or high-low game with center Patrick Ngongba II that dismantled NC State; it was all the little things you wouldn’t expect the best player in the country to do. 

Boozer is a superstar, but that doesn’t exempt him from doing the dirty work. His physicality on Monday night may have been the most impressive thing about his performance, and he earned a few scratches on his arm for his efforts. Boozer has a wide frame, and he used it to constantly carve out space down low. That’s how you go 8-10 from the field. His shot chart from the game is ludicrous. 

Beyond scoring the ball, Boozer facilitated constant movement. Zone defenses, ideally, make an offense static, and Boozer is too smart to let that happen. It’s almost like he’s the son of a former NBA all-star. He kept screening the zone, freeing shooters off-ball, opening driving lanes, and cutting off closeouts. Just look at how savvy this seal in transition is. 

That’s stuff you expect from a fifth-year senior, not a five-star freshman in his one-and-done year before becoming a top-three pick in the NBA Draft. And because he does all those little things, he probably shouldn’t be No. 2 or 3.