For the first time in Duke history, a Blue Devil one-and-done has gone undrafted.
Trevon Duval was not selected by any team in Thursday's 2018 NBA Draft, meaning he will become a free agent and look to earn his way onto a roster this summer. The Wilmington, Del., native struggled in his only season with the Blue Devils but tested well at the NBA Draft Combine last month, recording the second-highest standing vertical and third-highest max vertical among all players at the event.
Duval showed his strength as a ball handler last year, dishing out 207 assists in 37 games put him fourth among Duke freshmen all-time. But he could never find a shooting stroke—Duval shot worse than 60 percent from the free-throw line and just 29 percent from beyond the arc, both marks than ranked worst among Blue Devil starters.
In his last game for Duke, Duval nearly put up a career performance. Against Kansas in the Elite Eight, he scored 20 points and tallied six assists, almost helping Duke to a first Final Four appearance since 2015.
But even efforts to improve his vision haven't yet panned out for the 19-year-old.
"Big-time athlete, but I don’t trust him to run my team," an anonymous scout told The Athletic's Seth Davis. "His shot is broken. I don’t know how you play in our league if you can’t make a shot. I was expecting a lot more. I thought he had one foot out the door from the minute he got to Duke. He wasn’t a committed defender. He was in over his head a lot."
Duval could wind up starting his professional career in the G League, giving him plenty of time to learn and potentially fix a jumper that could be a catalyst to his chances of success at the next level.
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