“Arguably” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. If you said “arguably that team’s best *offensive* player,” I could see the argument. Tatum was clearly the better all around player. He wasn’t the defender that he became in the NBA, but we was not the total liability that Luke was.
Carolina delenda est
Luke Kennard was first-team All-ACC and consensus second-team All-America in 2017. Jayson Tatum was third-team All-ACC and finished a distant second to NC State's Dennis Smith for ACC Freshman of the Year. Tatum did miss some games early due to an injury and even in 2017 everyone recognized that Tatum was the best NBA prospect on the team. But a pretty credible case can be made that Luke Kennard was Duke's best player in 2017.
Having nothing to do with the question about Luke and Tatum this little debate got me to wondering... how often is Duke's "best player" up for debate?
2022 - Though we have all marveled at Wendell Moore's improvement this season, I think there is little question that the best player on the team is Paolo Banchero
2021 - Matthew Hurt, no debate about it
2020 - I suppose you could debate Vernon Carey versus Tre Jones, but I don't think it was all that close. Tre was the best player on that team.
2019 - Zion... nuf said.
2018 - Bagley... nuf said.
2017 - As noted earlier, there is a real debate between Luke Kennard and Jayson Tatum here.
2016 - Despite Brandon Ingram having a wonderful season, little question the answer here is Grayson Allen.
2015 - Jahlil Okafor, right? Is someone making an argument for Tyus or Justise?
2014 - Jabari Parker, no real other contender.
2013 - Mason Plumlee, but I will concede that one could argue for Seth Curry.
2012 - I guess it is Austin Rivers, but I suspect one could have made an argument for Seth or Mason.
2011 - If he had not gotten hurt, it would probably be Kyrie, but fairly clear Nolan Smith was top dog on this team.
2010 - Singler... no Scheyer... no Smith... and what about Zoubek late in the year?!?!
So, in the past 12 years, it feels to me like Duke has only had about 2-4 years where there wasn't a clear top dog (2017, 2010, and maybe 2020 and 2013).
No big conclusion here... just something I was wondering about.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Scheyer in 2010, Rivers in 2012 and Plumlee in 2013 are no-brainers for me. Kennard in 2017. Carey and Jones is a lot closer in 2020. Duke decided to push Jones for ACCPOY and not nominate Carey because they thought they would split the vote. The writers named Carey USBWA district POY over Jones and Carey got more traction in the All-America voting.
Look, everyone is entitled to their individual opinion, but I suspect there is a lot of "how did they do in the NBA? Wow, look at how the game has changed" impacting your statement.
Tyus was 3rd team All-ACC and did not sniff any national All-American teams. Big Jah was ACC POY and a consensus first team All-American. Perhaps you saw things at the time that the vast, vast, vast majority of college hoops observers did not, but there really was no debate about Duke's best player in 2015.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
NBA play is not affecting my opinion, but as you say we each have our own opinions. And “best player” is silly anyway. What matters is how a team comes together and 2015 certainly came together in a way that 2017 did not. Perhaps that is because of the familiarity of the 2015 players with each other and every player’s acceptance of their roles, including Big Jah as the unquestioned “best player” on the team. My point is that, in actuality, Tyus was better than Jah on that team at that time.
But to your point: Tyus deferred to Jah when the media spotlight was on.
I do not recall either Tatum or Kennard ceded any spotlight, so I agree that 2017 was unusual.
One thing I think we can agree on, Cook said it best after a big win when Tyus was being interviewed on TV: those two made up the best backcourt that year.
Carolina delenda est
Give me Tyus over Jah on that 2015 team. Maybe it’s because Tyus hit so many big shots at the end of games. I wish I could go back and ask 2015 me.
Carolina delenda est
Is this seriously being argued? Jah had a few down games in the tournament, but over the course of the whole season he was very consistent, and consistently overwhelming. Teams just could not handle him at the offensive end at all. The advanced stats back up the eye test, as well as the media's opinion that Jah wasn't just the best player on Duke's team, but (along with Kaminsky) the best player in the country. Tyus was great, in particular in the tournament, but also in many games during the regular season, but he also struggled for significant stretches. Believe me I'd take Tyus Jones as my college point guard all day and all night long and I loved that kid running our team, but for that year, the best and most impactful player on the team was Okafor.
I completely agree with you. Though Luke was clearly not a great defender at Duke, I saw him get many clever steals, deflect a considerable number of passes, block some shots, many times force his opponent into a difficult shot that they ended up missing, etc.
Additionally, Luke carried a huge offensive responsibility and thus had to focus on that. Had he been going all-out on defense on every play his offense would have suffered greatly.