Last week Jason Williams tweeted that Kyrie Irving is “the best player to ever come out of” Duke basketball. While that near-sighted view demonstrates how history can be shaped by the parochialism of personal experience, it does stress a point worth carrying in a different direction – Irving is the best one-and-done player ever to wear a Blue Devil uniform.
That standing is particularly relevant because Mike Krzyzewski has lately run one-year wonders through his program on a constant basis, and in growing batches. And in Marvin Bagley III he apparently has the best one-and-done Duke player of the nine who came and went since Irving, and the two who played before Irving arrived on the scene.