Duke's Trevon Duval goes undrafted in 2018 NBA Draft

Duval showed flashes of brilliance but struggled to shoot consistently in his lone season at Duke.
Duval showed flashes of brilliance but struggled to shoot consistently in his lone season at Duke.

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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