Coach K failed Zion Williamson in 4 major ways

This is how Coach K failed with his best player ever.

Mike Krzyzewski knew this Duke team was different on the very first day of the season. The Blue Devils headed to Indianapolis to open the new year against Kentucky in the Champions Classic as a one-point underdog. They left with a 34-point victory, the worst defeat of John Calipari’s career at any level, and talk that this team could go undefeated.

Duke was already presumed to potentially have the first three picks in the next NBA draft, a byproduct of recruiting the top three freshman in the country. What was originally built up as a super trio between R.J. Barrett, Zion Williamson, and Cam Reddish quickly devolved into one player towering over the rest. Williamson’s talent was so ascendent, so breathtaking, that it overshadowed not only his two star-crossed teammates but rest of the sport, as well.

Krzyzewski has a case to be the best coach in the history of college basketball and Williamson has a case to be the best player he’s ever coached. There’s also a statistical case that any team good enough to earn an at-large bid would have been the favorite to win the national championship with Williamson. Imagine Zion surrounded by Wofford’s shooting. Imagine Nate Oates deploying Zion within Buffalo’s uptempo system. Imagine Zion and Ja Morant reuniting their AAU glory days with Murray State.

Somehow, Duke still couldn’t make the Final Four even with Williamson. Michigan State shocked the world in the Elite Eight, ending the career of the greatest college player in recent memory (and maybe ever) one step before the sport’s biggest stage.

This is how Coach K blew his chance with Zion.

Duke didn’t recruit enough shooting

It’s pretty incredible to think Coach K can essentially recruit any player he wants, yet he still didn’t recruit any outside shooters.

Duke was one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the country all year. The Blue Devils made 30.8 percent of their threes as a team on the season, which ranked No. 327 out of 351 DI teams. Duke only took 26.5 percent of their field goals from three-point range, which ranked No. 310 in DI.

R.J. Barrett was a willing shooter (that’s putting it gently) but not an accurate one, hitting threes at only a 30.8 percent clip. Tre Jones, another freshman projected to be a first round pick, only shot 26.2 percent from deep at point guard. Cam Reddish (33.3 percent) never lived up to his reputation as the superstar trio’s best shooter. Jack White (27.8 percent) went ice cold after a strong start.

Williamson ended the year as the team’s second best three-point shooter at 33.8 percent. That is remarkable considering it’s the one obvious weakness in his game. Coach K blew it by not putting his superstar in enough space.

Coach K misused Zion all year

It’s weird to think that Williamson was misused when he shot 68 percent from the field on the season and averaged 22.6 points and 8.9 rebounds per game. It’s also true.

Williamson might be the most statistically dominant player in college basketball’s modern history, but he didn’t even have the highest usage rate on his own team. That would be a distinction that belonged to R.J. Barrett. For a good chunk of the season, Williamson was third on his own team in field goal attempts per game behind Reddish as well.

Coach K should have played Williamson in the pick-and-roll more, both as a ball handler and as a roller. Zion was incredible with the ball in his hands, finishing in the 87th percentile on isolation plays and in the 98th percentile when initiating the pick-and-roll. The problem is Williamson only got 50 isolation possessions all season, and somehow only handled the ball in the pick-and-roll 22 times all year.

If Zion wasn’t playing defacto point guard, he should have been used as a pure center. Going with Zion at the five is what unlocked Duke’s mammoth comeback against Louisville in February, but Coach K didn’t go to it enough. Williamson was typically used at the four with either Marques Bolden or Javin DeLaurier. This was a major wasted opportunity to primarily go with a lineup that would have simply run other teams off the floor.

Zion is the best center in the country. Zion is also the best point guard in the country. Coach K didn’t put him at either spot enough, especially when it came to the pick-and-roll.

Coach K let R.J. Barrett take over too much in crunch time

Barrett was supposed to be Duke’s best freshman coming into the season. He was the top-rated recruit in the country as a high schooler and the player widely projected to go No. 1 overall in June’s NBA draft. It immediately became apparent to the rest of the world that Williamson was the vastly superior talent. Well, it was clear to everyone except Coach K and possibly Barrett himself.

Barrett averaged 18.5 field goal attempts per game this season, compared to 13.2 per game for Zion. Barrett’s true shooting percentage was slightly below average at 53.2 percent. Williamson’s true shooting percentage was historically great at 70.2 percent. It is pretty mind-blowing that (arguably) the best college basketball player ever had a teammate take five more shots per game than him on average while using those possessions much more inefficiently.

All Coach K had to do to save his season was let Zion cook in crunch-time against Michigan State. Instead, it was Barrett who attempted Duke’s last two field goals and then missed a free throw that could have tied the game. This was a problem all season:

Duke lost three games with Zion Williamson in the lineup this year.
RJ Barrett went ***0-for-9*** in the final minute of those three games. The rest of the team had three total shots. Zion had one.

— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) March 31, 2019

In a November loss to Gonzaga, Williamson tied the game with a layup with 1:45 remaining. He didn’t get another field goal attempt. Barrett would take five more shots and go 0-for-5. Duke lost. In an overtime loss to Syracuse in January, Barrett took 30 shots and Williamson took 20 shots. When it happened again against MSU, it cost Duke the season.

Coach K couldn’t find a way to make Cam Reddish more valuable

Reddish was supposed to be the second coming of Paul George entering college. We had him as the No. 1 overall pick in our preseason mock draft back in June, the day after the 2018 NBA draft. Given the expectations, it’s hard to view Reddish’s year as anything other than a huge disappointment.

Reddish averaged 13.5 points per game on the year, but only shot 35.6 percent from the field. He finished with 96 turnovers to 70 assists. This was supposed to be one of the most talented players in the country, but Coach K was never able to find a way to maximize him.

Krzyzewski has come up short with superteams before. It’s important to remember how young Duke was, with their top four players all being freshmen. Still, when one of those players is a historically great talent, getting knocked out before the Final Four amounts to a massive failure.

Coach K will never have a player as good as Zion Williamson again. He blew his one opportunity with him.

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