Duke basketball tends to recruit players who dream of playing in the NBA and many fulfill that ambition.
But Duke also recruits players who go into coaching. Especially guards. Steve Vacendak, Kevin Billerman, Bob Bender, Johnny Dawkins, Tommy Amaker, Quin Snyder, Bobby Hurley, Chris Duhon. J.J. Redick, whose first coaching job was leading one of the sport’s iconic franchises. Et.al.
Fun fact. We all remember that awful 1994-’95 season. That team included four players who would go on to become head coaches at the collegiate level, Chris Collins, Jeff Capel, Kenny Blakeney and Wojo. Trajan Langdon is an NBA executive.
Maybe you really do learn more from adversity.
Which brings me to Duke’s newest assistant coach.
Actually Duke has two new assistants, one with Duke ties and one without.
Tyler Thornton wasn’t a great college player. He wasn’t supposed to be. A D.C. native, Thornton wasn’t a top-100 player, although he was named the Gatorade Player of the Year for the District of Columbia. But he wasn’t especially quick, didn’t jump that high or shoot that well.
A practice player for classmate Kyrie Irving, who, as it turned out, didn’t practice all that much at Duke.
Josh Hairston was the third member of that class.
