Seriously, how many times has this already been done?
I'm sure this board has a thread on this some where but I couldn't find it. You all seem to have great knowledge of Duke basketball and the game, I was wondering what you all think is Duke's all time starting five. Here is what I would go with.
1st team:
Christian Laettner
Grant Hill
Shane Battier
JJ Redick
Bobby Hurley
2nd team:
Danny Ferry
Johnny Dawkins
Kyle Singler
Art Heyman
Jay Williams
Honarble mention:
Dick Groat, Mike Gminski, Elton Brand, Chris Duhon
Wow a lot of great players. Had to do 2 teams.
Seriously, how many times has this already been done?
And I thought it was already decided that Jabari Parker was the greatest to ever lace up?
Wrong the correct answer is:
C: Jahlil Okafor
PF: Jabari Parker
SF: Justise Winslow
PG: Tyus Jones
SG: Some class of 2019 kid nobody's ever heard of, but he's gonna be the best Duke player EVAR!!!
Bob Verga and Jeff Mullins doesn't merit a mention? Really?
Two biases going on here: 1. Recency: Young bloods like most the players they've seen play. 2. Hopefulness: People like to think new players are going to be great.
How about Jim Spanarkel? First Duke player to score 2000 points, 1st Team All American in 1979. National title game starter in 1978. Duke's MVP for three years in the breakout Bill Foster era.
It's the press's and the coach's fault:
First Team -- Consensus National Players of the Year:
Heyman, 1963
Laettner, 1992*
Brand, 1999
Battier, 2001
JWill, 2002
Redick, 2006
(We recently lost Artie, but he's still on the team)
Second and Third Teams -- (All other NPOYs, First-Team All-Americans and Retired Jerseys)
Groat, 1952 (still broadcasting in Pittsburgh as an octogenarian)
Mullins, 1964*
Verga, 1967
Gminski, 1980 (1st team in 1979)
JDawkins, 1986
Ferry, 1989
Hurley, 1993
Grant Hill, 1994*
Carrawell, 2000
Shelden Wms., 2006
Nolan Smith, 2012
Jabari, 2014
*Olympic gold medal, plus Tate Armstrong (1976) and Carlos Boozer (2008, bronze 2004)
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
1. The vast majority of Duke's success has come in the Coach K era, and that deserves to be reflected in such lists.
2. I don't think anyone has proposed current or future players, so I'm not sure what that has to do with it.
Mine:
Kyrie Irving
JJ Redick
Grant Hill
Shane Battier
Elton Brand
I wasn't going to contribute -- this topic gets overworked to death, plus it's always biased in favor of the most recent guys -- but I did want to correct one mistake -- Dick Groat was not only the consensus national player of the year in 1952 -- he was the UNANIMOUS national player of the year ... There weren't as many NPOY awards in 1952, but Groat won all that mattered -- he was the UPI POY (that was the coaches pick), he was the Look Magazine choice (and that was probably the most prestigious award at that time), he was the Helms pick (in real time ... not retroactive). The AP didn't officially pick a POY, but Groat was the leading vote-getter on the AP All-America team.
So by your criteria, Dick Groat should make your first team.
Also, Danny Ferry and Sean Elliott split the recognized NPOY awards evenly in 1989 and both are recognized by the NCAA as Co-consensus NPOY
So, believe it or not someone complained to the mods that this post was insulting to Patrick. For those of you who are somewhat new to DBR, you need to know that Patrick Davidson is an Urban Legend and a man not to be trifled with
-Jason "speaking of not really knowing your DBR history, this thread has been done in a million different forms a million different times. I doubt many of us want to bother with it again" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Dick Groat scored 48 points against CaroWina in February, 1952. Danny Ferry is the only one to exceed that, by 10 points. Both players deserve the highest accolades for that and for everything else they accomplished. The Bleacher Report, in fact has Groat as #1 on its all all-time list of Duke players. Nice list, but it has a few flaws. My list would be similar, though. I'd have Grant Hill somewhere in the first two on the list, but I can't argue with the entirety of the list.
I am surprised by the fact that only Jeff Mullins from the Coach Vic Bubas years is mentioned in this thread's list. A lot of today's folks know very little about Coach Bubas and his program. As much as I admire Coach K, Bubas would have likely taken us to similar lofty levels had he stayed as head coach.
Just a variation of the recency bias. And allows one to evade the real question.
The youth of today should view this:
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_epste...etter_stronger
What? How is it "recency bias" to point out that Duke's national players of the year were overwhelmingly during the K era? Would anyone seriously doubt that a list of UCLA's best players would be heavily tilted toward the Wooden era?
(I also don't think we should kid ourselves that there aren't some, let's say, visually obvious characteristics of 50s and 60s era teams that you have to keep in mind when playing this game).
Because National Players of the Year are a lousy metric to judge individual talent, they are so obviously biased. Everyone knows that the best players of that era didn't even go to college.* If the Hawk would have suited up for the Hawkeyes, they would have won 4 titles in 3 years.
And everyone also knows, Kevin Love is the second best player to suit up for the Bruins, slightly ahead of Ed O'Bannon and slightly behind Schea Cotton.
*This obviously bolsters my argument, somehow in a ashen whiskers kind of way. And if you take any of this seriously, well, I don't know what to say. I used to take my restored '68 Firebird to car shows. I've got hardware from national and regional level shows. And yet, I often don't get a thing at local show and shines. What does this all mean? Life is a beauty contest and some years they don't get Miss Universe right.
Last edited by YmoBeThere; 07-27-2014 at 07:51 PM. Reason: Changed to Miss
I don't know what environmentalism has to do with anything, and I don't think there weren't great players before K.
But IMO a lot of the posters on this board take things way too far in that direction by outsmarting themselves. 100% of Duke's national titles and 75% of Duke's Final Fours have come in the past 28 years, and while team and individual success aren't the same thing, that recent dominance absolutely deserves to be reflected in these sorts of lists. That doesn't mean you can't make an argument for anyone before K: Groat, Heyman, and Mullins deserve to be in the discussion, but no one else in the pre-K era does for the top 5, and it's not close. Our athletic department apparently agrees, based on the retired jersey list.
I read the thread - kaze's post was obviously a joke.