This is the first in a series of Duke's All-Decade teams, as named by various Chronicle writers, past and present. At the end of the series, you will be able to vote for your own All-Decade team, and your votes will determine The Sports Blog’s final choice. Stay tuned over the next two weeks for more All-Decade choices.
As 2009 winds down, it's time to look at a decade of Duke Basketball as a whole. Sports Illustrated recently named its College Basketball All-Decade Team , which included three Blue Devils: Jason Williams, Shane Battier and JJ Redick. Needless to say, all three made the All-Decade Team—after all, the three Blue Devils all won the Naismith College Player of the Year award.
Also this decade, Duke had four ACC Players of the Year awards (Chris Carrawell 2000, Battier 2001, Redick 2005 and 2006), two ACC Rookie of the Year awards (Chris Duhon 2001, Kyle Singler 2008), and four National Defensive Player of the Year awards (Battier 2000 and 2001, Shelden Williams 2005 and 2006).
Below are the three teams I came up with. Any player who played for Duke from 2000-2009 was eligible and I took into account how many years each player played for the Blue Devils:
1st Team
- Jason Williams, 1999-2002 (19.2 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 6.0 apg)
- J.J. Redick, 2002-2006 (19.9 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.2 apg)
- Shane Battier, 1997-2001 (13.6 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 1.6 apg)
- Carlos Boozer, 2001-2003 (14.9 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 1.1 apg)
- Shelden Williams, 2002-2006 (13.9 ppg, 9.1 rpg, 0.9 apg)
2nd Team
- Jon Scheyer* 2006-Present (13.4 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 2.7, apg)
- Gerald Henderson, 2006-2009 (12.3 ppg, 4.2, rpg, 1.8 apg)
- Kyle Singler, 2007-Present (15.0 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 2.0 apg)
- Mike Dunleavy Jr., 2001-2003 (13.2 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 2.2 apg)
- Luol Deng, 2003-2004 (15.1 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 1.8 apg)
3rd Team
- Chris Duhon, 2000-2004 (8.8 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 5.7 apg)
- DeMarcus Nelson, 2004-2008 (10.8 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 4.9 apg)
- Chris Carrawell, 1997-2000 (10.7 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 2.3 apg, 4 years)
- Dahntay Jones, 2001-2003 (14.3 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 1.0 apg, 2 years)
- Josh McRoberts, 2005-2007 (10.8 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.4 apg, 2 years)
* = as of December 20, 2009
Up tomorrow: Taylor Doherty will tackle the Duke All-Decade Villains team.
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