College Basketball: What if the One-and-Done Rule was the Four-and-Done Rule?
4. 2013-2014 Duke Blue Devils
PG – Kyrie Irving/Quinn Cook
SG – Austin Rivers/Andre Dawkins
SF – Rodney Hood/Rasheed Sulaimon
PF – Jabari Parker/Tyler Thornton
C – Amile Jefferson/Marshall Plumlee
On paper, I was fairly underwhelmed with these guys being the best Duke team I could put together. But the more I thought about it, the better these guys actually were.
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Things would start and end with Kyrie at the point. He would be an absolute one man fast break in college as a 22 year old, when he posted 20 points and 6 assists per game in the NBA. Austin Rivers doesn’t seem like an ideal guy for any of these teams, but having Irving at the point allows him to move over to the shooting guard position, which makes sense, because as I often say: Austin Rivers is a shooting guard in a point guard’s body.
For everything Rivers is criticized for, he’s always been a pretty good three-point shooter, and Irving would give him, Hood, Sulaimon, Dawkins, and Cook plenty of wide-open opportunities. Coach K would be in absolute heaven with this. They would be pretty mediocre on defense, but in reality, aren’t most Duke teams?
The reason for that is the awful frontcourt. Jefferson would be serviceable against most college teams, but if he were pitted against almost any other starting center in these rankings (including the aforementioned Pittman), he wouldn’t stand a chance. Marshall Plumlee might almost make more sense only because he’s 7-feet tall. Unfortunately, being tall is pretty much the only thing he does well on a basketball court.
Ultimately, Coach K could roll with a Hood/Parker frontcourt, which he did a lot in 2013-14. The offensive ceiling there would be unbelievably high. An NBA all-star, paired with another NBA player in Rivers, and three fantastic three-point shooters in Quinn Cook, Jabari Parker, and Rodney Hood? Sign me up. And I haven’t even began to talk about all the other things Parker could do on offense.
Think about how good all the best Duke teams have been the past few years. Now take every single great offensive player on those teams, and that’s what this team is.
Just imagine the possibilities.
Next: 3. 2010-2011 Memphis Tigers