Duke basketball players

While watching tonight's Duke-UNC game, Lisa asked me if one of the senior players on the Duke team was destined for the NBA. I noted how few players get drafted into the NBA (60) compared to the thousands of college players active, and looked up the mock draft for next year to confirm the player - while great in his own right - was not listed among the players expected to be drafted.

Out of the 550 players to play for Duke, 63 players went on to play in the NBA. That's a fairly high percentage, representative of the talent attracted to the Duke basketball program, but still only a small fraction of the players made it to the NBA.

The top ten scoring leaders in Duke basketball history are

1. J.J. Redick
2. Johnny Dawkins
3. Christian Laettner
4. Kyle Singler
5. Mike Gminski
6. Danny Ferry
7. Mark Alaire
8. Gene Banks
9. Jason Williams
10. Jon Scheyer

The last name on the list is the only one without NBA experience;  Jon Scheyer was a second team All American and team captain at Duke, but never played a single NBA game.

Among the retired jerseys all players have NBA experiences:

• #4 J.J. Redick
• #10 Dick Groat
• #11 Bobby Hurley
• #22 Jason Williams
• #23 Shelden Williams
• #24 Johnny Dawkins
• #25 Art Heyman
• #31 Shane Battier
• #32 Christian Laettner
• #33 Grant Hill
• #35 Danny Ferry
• #43 Mike Gminski
• #44 Jeff Mullins

Looking at it the other way around, the former Duke players with the most NBA games played:

1. Grant Hill
2. Elton Brand
3. Shane Battier
4. Mike Gminski
5. Danny Ferry
6. Mike Dunleavy
7. Christian Laettner
8. Jack Marin
9. Carlos Boozer
10. Corey Maggette

 So of the top ten NBA careers by games played only 5 had their number retired at Duke and only 3 were among the top ten scorers in Duke history. 4 players left college early to play in the NBA; Elton Brand, Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy, and Corey Maggette.

NBA success is not dependent on college success - players skipping college entirely include Kobe Bryant. College success does not assure NBA success, as has been the case for many players over the years. Especially in the modern era where the best players bypass college years to go professional, collegiate success is not predictive of NBA success.