Duke Basketball: Early look at Blue Devils potential roster for 2020-21 season
Who leaves from the 2019-20 roster
There are several players who will likely be leaving Durham following the 2019-20 season, some for the NBA Draft and some because they are graduating. In addition to those who we know are all but gone, there are a couple players who might be on the fence.
These are the five players that I think are 100% gone following the 2019-20 season. Vernon Carey jr. is a lock to go to the NBA Draft, but Tre Jones is a little more of a question mark, but not enough to consider him to be “on the fence.”
Vernon Carey jr. is the front-runner to be the ACC Player of the Year this season with his stellar 17.5 points, 8.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game this season. In addition to this, Carey has 12 double-doubles in 24 games so far this year which is unworldly.
Because of his impressive numbers, there is absolutely no way Carey returns to Durham for his sophomore season, it just doesn’t make any sense. However, Carey is projected to be the 10th overall pick according to NBADraft.net.
With those numbers, it’s interesting Carey isn’t projected to be a top-five pick, but there are still about two months remaining in the season so he will have the opportunity to raise his draft stock.
Tre Jones is another player on this list because I simply can’t see Jones returning for his junior season. However, to be fair, nobody saw Grayson Allen returning for his junior season, but he did. If this tells you anything it should tell you not to put him in one box or the other and to wait for his announcement once the season is over.
Tre Jones has been huge for Duke this season as he averages 15.6 points, 3.9 rebounds and 6.6 assists per game. All three of those categories are a huge step up from Jones’ numbers last season and many thought Jones was going to the draft last year.
That being said, I couldn’t imagine Jones staying at Duke for his third season, but crazier things have happened. I have seen Tre Jones projected to be drafted as high as 22 and as low as the end of the second round, so Jones is a player that could go either way, but I would expect him to be NBA bound once the 2019-20 season wraps up.
The other three players I have on this list as leaving Duke are all seniors which means they are playing out their final years of eligibility and will be leaving Durham following the season.