Load Sharing - Does Duke Need To Do More?

Duke adherents and at-large observers are starting to look askance at a singular strength of this year’s squad. The problem, as they see it, is that the Blue Devils rely heavily on the impressive scoring of one player, Cameron Boozer. 

Too heavily, by some estimations, although opposing defenses seem largely unable to exploit that lopsided point production. 

Through the first dozen games Boozer averaged 23.25 points, most in the ACC. Only three other players in the league managed as many as 20 points. The best a Duke teammate mustered through the Devils’ 11-1 start was a 12.50-point contribution by Isaiah Evans, a difference of 10.75 points compared to Boozer.  

That gap between the scoring leader and the No.2 scorer is, to this juncture, the greatest this century between a Duke pacesetter and his nearest scoring collaborator. The most prominent preceding gap emerged in 2006, when JJ Redick, currently the LA Lakers head coach, averaged 8.0 more points than the Duke scoring runnerup, center Shelden Williams (26.8 versus 18.8). 

Duke players rarely lead the conference in scoring; Cooper Flagg came close last season, finishing third with a 19.16-average behind Notre Dame’s Markus Burton (21.27) and 20.20 by Stanford Maxine Raynaud.

(Mention of a 20-point average sparks a digression to rebut a persistent falsehood. Dean Smith did not hold Michael Jordan under 20 points per game when the wunderkind played at North Carolina from 1982-84. Jordan scored 721 points in 36 games as a sophomore, a 20.028 average. Knowledgeable fans should know this.) 

Back to Duke. 

Someone from Duke led the ACC 14 different times in scoring over the league’s first 72 seasons, basically one year in five. Three players did it twice in the era before outstanding success meant leaving college early: Danny Ferry (1988, 1989), Jason Williams (2001, 2002), and Redick (2005, 2006). Ferry and Redick each were twice voted ACC Player Of The Year when they paced the league in scoring. Williams was never so honored.

The most recent ACC scoring leader from Duke was Matthew Hurt, who averaged 18.3 in Covid-truncated 2021. 

Of Blue Devil players in this century, only three besides Redick finished the season averaging at least 4 more points than any teammate. (Redick did it twice.) In 2018 Marvin Bagley III chipped in 5.5 more points per game than runnerup Grayson Allen. Hurt scored 5.3 more than little-remembered DJ Steward in 2021, and in 2016 Allen supplied 4.3 more points an outing than Duke’s No. 2, Brandon Ingram. 

The smallest scoring margins among Blue Devils since 2001 were recorded as ties in 2009 and 2019 – RJ Barrett averaged .02 more points in five more games than Zion Williamson in ’19 (22.63 vs. 22.61), and Gerald Henderson topped Kyle Singler by an average of 0.027 points (16.4865 vs. 16.4594 in 37 games) in ’09.

All three of Duke’s NCAA title-winning squads in this century had a gap in scoring between the team leader and the runnerup of no more than 2.0 points.