We have had guys sitting behind the likes of Tyler Thorton and Josh Hariston who were much much better players.
Who?
Josh started 9 of 30 games his senior year and 17 of 121 for his career. The only scholarship post players he ever had more minutes than were a freshman
Amile Jefferson and a redshirt freshman
Marshall Plumlee when he was a junior, and
Marshall again the next year.
Tyler played about twice as much as
Quinn when
Tyler was a soph and
Quinn was a freshman. If you want to through in
Gbinije the same year, he had about 4 times his minutes per game. As a junior and senior, he started ahead of
Quinn often, but wasn't close to his minutes per game, and the only backcourt player he had more minutes than was fellow senior An
dre Dawkins.
Dre could shoot, but we all know very well he struggled to be consistent on the court and off throughout his time at Duke. Let's not pretend
Quinn didn't seem like much more than a frustrating headcase before one of the greatest senior redemptions ever, either.
In
Josh's case, we struggled to land any better bigs and he just didn't develop like we hoped. In
Tyler's case, you have to be blinded by boxscores not to recognize and appreciate the intangibles he brought to the game. K said himself it was a shame that in
Tyler he had an off-the-charts leader who wasn't a great player, but on the whole, doesn't that explain exactly why he played
both as much as he did
and as little as he did? There is an absolutely perfect balance of acknowledgement of
Tyler's limitations and acknowledgement of his intangibles. Just as someone would be an idiot to ask why he didn't get 35+ minutes per game, you'd be an idiot if you were to question why he earned the time he did.