Duke Basketball: What a Blue Devils affiliated TBT team would look like

Who would fill the non-player roles?

As mentioned earlier, the non-player roles are as follows:

• General Manager
  • “There must be one GM per Team.  The GM is the individual who registers a Team on the Website and who oversees all aspects of the Team, including, without limitation, recruiting Players and soliciting Fan support.”
• Coach
  • “A Team may have one or more Coaches or may elect not to have a Coach.”
• Booster
  • “A Team may have one or more Boosters or may elect not to have a Booster.  A Booster is someone a Team believes will assist the Team in gaining entry to the Tournament, soliciting Fan support, or will help the Team in some other way off-the-court.”
• Other
  • “A team may have one or more individuals in the role of Other. An individual in the role of Other is anyone who does not fit one of the role descriptions immediately above.”

All information is taken directly from The Basketball Tournament’s rules page.

One would imagine the coach would undoubtedly be a former Duke player with the amount of impressive former players Duke has seen come through Durham.

Here are some of my ideas for the coach:

• Grayson Allen
• JJ Redick
• Jayson Tatum
• Kyrie Irving
• Austin Rivers

Personally, I think these are the best options for the coach of the Blue Devils’ TBT team. You won’t see a current college or NBA coaches like Coach K, Johnny Dawkins, Bobby Hurley, Jeff Capel, Quin Snyder, or one of the other amazing coaches who also happens to be a former Blue Devil, coaching a TBT team anytime soon.

That being said, that’s where a current NBA player like Grayson Allen, JJ Redick, Jayson Tatum, Kyrie Irving, or Austin Rivers comes in.

In Grayson Allen, you get a four year Blue Devil, National Champion, and current NBA player, in Redick you get a two-time ACC Player of the Year, four year Duke player and a 15-year NBA player who has never missed the playoffs. In Tatum, you get a Duke one-and-done, but one of the best NBA players in the league at the moment, in Irving you get another one-and-done, but he is also a great NBA player and is an NBA Champion, and lastly in Rivers, you get another one-and-done, a current NBA player, and also the son of one of the best coaches in the NBA, Doc Rivers.

In my opinion, Grayson Allen and JJ Redick are the best options for this role as Grayson Allen has expressed interest in a coaching role down the line before, and JJ Redick is an NBA veteran who knows the game of the basketball, unlike few others.

For the role of general manager, I think there are only two options: Shane Battier or Carlos Boozer. Battier is someone Lebron James has described as one of the most knowledgeable basketball players of all time, and Carlos Boozer is an NBA veteran who knows a thing or two about what goes into a good basketball team.

The role of a booster is a role that could really go to anybody, so we won’t try to predict who that would be.

As for the “other”, I think the best former players for this would be either Nolan Smith or Quinn Cook. Smith is the people’s champ, a National Champion, one of the most liked players in recent Duke memory, and would serve as a great hype man, but in Cook, you get a National Champion AND NBA Champion who has played with some of the best players in NBA History, would serve as a great hype man, and could help coach if needed as well.

It would be very interesting to see who would fill these roles, but in my opinion, these are some of the best for the jobs.