Duke Basketball: Marvin Bagley receives permission to wear retired #35
Duke Basketball will have a new #35 to cheer for the first time since 1989 when it was retired in honor of Danny Ferry. Marvin Bagley will now don the number.
Duke Basketball experienced a game changer when top prospect Marvin Bagley III reclassified into the 2017 class to join the massive influx of talented freshmen. Bagley was widely considered to the top pick of the 2019 NBA Draft, and his status hasn’t changed much after joining the 2018 NBA Draft class.
The question you have to ask is: why Duke? It is a question for which we have all kinds of answers. You get to play for Mike Krzyzewski, the coach with the most wins in men’s D-1 basketball history. You get to play in front of the Cameron Crazies against the top competition in the ACC. You have a national title shot just about every year. And how about we throw in the academics reputation of one of finest private schools in the country while we are at it.
Bagley’s answer might be a bit different than all of that, though. It turns out that Duke was willing to go a little unorthodox to bring Bagley in. They promised him that he could wear his high school number, #35, even though it is retired by the schoo.
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The number 35 at Duke has special significance. It was the number of Duke star and former NBA executive Danny Ferry. Duke had retired Ferry’s number out of respect for his accomplishments as a player.
According to reports from Steve Wiseman of the Durham Herald-Sun, Ferry has given permission for Bagley to wear the number. The former Duke star is very invested in the continued success of the team and does not feel disrespected. According to Ferry, assistant coach and recruiting closer Jeff Capel had asked him about the issue a while ago.
This just shows how much Duke wanted Bagley and how far they were willing to go to bring him in. Duke has retired 13 numbers, which does limit their flexibility on this kind of thing. This may be the first domino in a change on how they handle the number retirement process. This most likely will not be the last time this particular issue appears.
Next: Effect of Bagley on Recruiting Rankings
For the curious, Duke’s 13 retired jerseys include nine players from the Krzyzewski era. The most recent jersey to be retired was current Philadelphia 76er J.J. Redick in 2007 just after Shelden Williams’ jersey was retired a few days before.