My understanding of the Jalen Johnson situation is that he was injured and tried to come back but struggled in limited minutes for a couple games then made the decision to bow out early to ensure he was healthy and ready for the draft. Duke was all but eliminated from the tournament by that point in the season anyway. A number of ESPN personalities made a big stink about him "quitting" on the team but top NFL prospects do the same thing every year (49er 2nd overall pick Nick Bosa to cite just one recent example) and nobody cares. I don't know why it's a problem for basketball and not for football.
The interesting thing about Jalen Johnson to me, particularly if we end up at 9 or 10, is that he offers a combination of positional need (combo forward who can guard wings), playmaking skills, outside shooting, and defensive versatility that no one else in the late lotto range has. The mock drafts are penalizing him for his perceived transgressions but I think he's going to move up draft boards once he gets into a workout situation the same way Patrick Williams did last year and we could see him go as high as 5th or 6th because of his potential and his production in limited minutes at Duke. I'm curious to hear where people are getting their info on him chaffing under Coach K because that sounds more like speculation than fact to me. Maybe I missed something.
The interesting thing about Jalen Johnson to me, particularly if we end up at 9 or 10, is that he offers a combination of positional need (combo forward who can guard wings), playmaking skills, outside shooting, and defensive versatility that no one else in the late lotto range has. The mock drafts are penalizing him for his perceived transgressions but I think he's going to move up draft boards once he gets into a workout situation the same way Patrick Williams did last year and we could see him go as high as 5th or 6th because of his potential and his production in limited minutes at Duke. I'm curious to hear where people are getting their info on him chaffing under Coach K because that sounds more like speculation than fact to me. Maybe I missed something.