Barrett launching Duke career at home
Canadian basketball prodigy headlines a star-studded roster for exhibition games
There’s no question who the headliner will be for this week’s pair of exhibition basketball games pitting the Duke Blue Devils against the Ryerson Rams and University of Toronto Blues.
R.J. Barrett has been a headliner on every court he’s stepped on since puberty and probably before that. And being the lone Canadian on the Duke squad — not to mention the No. 1 recruit in North America in 2018 — it’s not even a debate.
While Barrett is the top attraction for fans taking in the games in the Toronto area — starting with Wednesday’s game against Ryerson at Mississauga — there are plenty of other items of interest on the menu.
For starters, Barrett is just one of five freshmen on Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s roster who have been headliners in their own right throughout their basketball days.
And while Krzyzewski and his staff refuse to acknowledge recruiting rankings, ESPN’s 2018 list gives the Blue Devils the highest possible grade, with the top three recruits all landing at Duke.
The list is topped by the Mississauga native Barrett, the son of Rowan Barrett, a former national team player and a pretty hotly pursued player himself before playing his college basketball at St. John’s more than a quarter of a century ago.
Right behind him is Barrett’s current roommate and ESPN’s consensus No. 2 recruit Zion Williamson, a 6-foot-6, 285-pound unicorn. And behind him is 6-foot-7 small forward Cam Reddish.
There have been players before Williamson with his kind of size, but none with quite the same blend of size and athleticism.
Barrett is no slouch in the athletic department himself — he’s able to leave jaws dropping seemingly at will — but even he regularly finds himself in awe of what his fellow freshman can do on the basketball court.
“He’s ridiculous, I don’t understand,” Barrett said. “He’s my roommate so we talk a lot, we’re together all the time, so it’s becoming less … I can’t say that. Every time he steps on the court I’m like ‘This guy is crazy.’ So I try to keep up with him.”
In a dunk-off worthy of the NBA, Barrett and Williamson had a little “beat this” game going at the conclusion of Tuesday’s practice.
Both attempted a full-court run-up to the free throw line, followed by the takeoff and the thunderous jam. Both stepped over the line marginally, with Williamson a bit closer to legitimately taking off behind that line than Barrett, although both also completed the dunk.
While Williamson has the body of an NFL middle linebacker, Barrett, at 6-foot-7 and 202 pounds, owns more of a traditional basketball build.
Reading between the lines of Coach K’s session with the media on Tuesday, Williamson has some catching up to do in the overall game department, too, when compared to his roommate.
“Zion is still figuring out, and we need to help him with this, who exactly he is as a basketball player,” Krzyzewski said. “But athletically, he is incredibly unique. To be that big and graceful with the jumping ability and lateral quickness. He just needs to figure it all out.”
Barrett conversely seems to come almost ready made, though Krzyzewski is confident a year with Duke will unquestionably make him a better pro than had he not had that opportunity to spend a year there.
“I love R.J.,” Krzyzewski said. “He’s a basketball player. He’s position-less. He’s a tremendous leader and competitor. He has fit right in. He has improved even in the short time he has been with us and I love coaching him.”
Barrett leaves no doubt that being surrounded by freshman who, like himself, have been in the spotlight their whole lives can only help him as they all go through the NCAA learning curve together.
“It’s great,” Barrett said. “I always played with high-level competition my whole life, but to be on a team with Zion, Cam (Reddish, who’s No. 3 on ESPN’s top recruits board), Tre (Jones, No. 17 on the same list), guys of that calibre, we all kind of get it, we’re all kind of going through the same thing, so it’s great to have guys like that to help you out.”