Duke Basketball: 2019 NBA Draft profile of Blue Devil guard RJ Barrett
By Alex Weber
RJ Barrett, an alpha wing with gaudy scoring numbers drew polarizing opinions throughout his season at Duke Basketball, but what has scouts convinced he’s a top 3 prospect in the NBA Draft?
R.J. Barrett’s NBA Future, while certain, remains the most sophisticated in the entire NBA Draft. Though a consensus top-3 prospect, Barrett prompted as many questions as assurances in his lone season with Duke Basketball, many stemming from a circumstance the high school superstar had never experienced: not being the best player on his team. As of two years ago, Barrett was Canada’s solitary beacon of triumph over the United States on the basketball court.
Over the 2017 summer, RJ, then a wiry bucket-getting 17-year-old phenom (what much has changed, really?) dethroned the worldwide powerhouse United States National Team behind a torrid 38-point performance en route to securing a FIBA World Cup championship for his home country and the unanimous no. 1 ranking in ESPN’s top 100.
Since then, Barrett signed with Duke, vaporized college defenses at a 22 points-per-game clip and established himself as one of the game’s elite young players. Yet, the exit surveys from his year at Duke remain bipolar; riddled with complaints of selfishness and poor decision-making along with praises of elite playmaking and his scoring knack. Barrett is far from agreed upon as a prospect, yet his stock is consensus top-3. Here’s how I’d break down his game under an NBA lens.