Duke Basketball: Way-too-early look at potential 2020-21 Blue Devils roster
Shooting Guard
Shooting guard is another position where we could very well see a player from the 2019-20 team stick around for the following season. The player at question is Cassius Stanley who is ranked 31st overall in the Class of 2019.
Because Stanley is ranked 31st and because he will be playing with players ranked 6th, 11th and 22nd in the Class of 2019, I believe he winds up making the decision to remain at Duke for his sophomore season.
This doesn’t mean that I believe Stanley won’t be impressive in his freshman season, this simply means that I believe he will stay for the same reason Tre Jones decided to stay. This is because he will be overshadowed by the abundance of talent he will be surrounded by.
Not only that, but we could likely see Alex O’Connell get a multitude of minutes next season as well, which would obviously take away from some of Stanley’s minutes, giving him less time to prove himself.
This being said, I believe that Stanley ultimately makes the decision to stay for the 2020-21 season and try to help the Blue Devils reach the top once again.
Another player that could be a big question mark for the 2020-21 season at shooting guard is Alex O’Connell. O’Connell is a very talented player, but in each of his first two seasons at Duke, he has failed to start consistently, because of another shooting guard on the roster.
In his freshman year it was Grayson Allen and in his sophomore year it was Cam Reddish and RJ Barrett and in his junior year he will likely not start either because of Cassius Stanley. It is because of this that we could see O’Connell transfer in hopes of finding a school that would give him the minutes needed to be looked at seriously by NBA teams.
Going into his senior season O’Connell will have one final chance at making a good impression on NBA scouts and it is likely fair to assume that he might have a better chance of doing so if he were to leave Duke for another school.
Even though this is something that will get a lot of attention going into the 2020-21 season, I believe O’Connell ultimately decides to stay at Duke simply because he loves playing for the Blue Devils.
O’Connell plays with arguably some of the most emotion out of any player on Duke and you can just see how much he has bought into The Brotherhood and how much he loves playing for Duke when he is on the court.
I think it is for this reason and this reason only that he winds up deciding to stay at Duke for his senior season.
Because of these two players staying at Duke, the Blue Devils won’t be able to get a commitment from a top ranked shooting guard such as DJ Steward. Steward recently announced his final eight schools, which did include the Blue Devils.
In addition to this, Jalen Johnson recently revealed that Steward was one of the players in the Class of 2020 who he was heavily recruiting. However, because I believe Stanley and O’Connell both wind up staying in Durham, Steward will ultimately decide on a different school.
What I believe the shooting guard depth chart will look like in 2020-21:
- Cassius Stanley
- Alex O’Connell
You could see another lower ranked shooting guard from the Class of 2020 commit to Duke, but even if that is the case, these would likely be the only two getting time at shooting guard, alongside Jeremy Roach who you could see get some minutes at the two.