Andre Dawkins spent a year away from the basketball team. He redshirted, but he didn’t practice. He wasn’t a part of the team picture. He watched home games from the bleachers behind the team’s bench. He played golf. He got out of shape. He finished his undergraduate degree. He cleared his head.
As little as the understated Dawkins likes to talk about his time off, there’s one thing he doesn’t shy away from: He’s a 3-point shooter. When he tweeted his return to the basketball team, he said he was changing his number from 20 to 34 in honor of one of the NBA’s best ever shooters, Ray Allen. And on the court, his shooting is what will get him minutes for the Blue Devils.
“A lot of my success in this game is going to be based off the way I shoot the ball,” Dawkins said. “The big thing for me is keeping that strength a strength. For me that’s shooting, and that’s why I work so hard on it—to be the best shooter.”
Sometimes the ease in Dawkins’ stroke is obvious. At the beginning of his junior season, he led the Blue Devils past Michigan State at Madison Square Garden with 26 points on 6-of-10 shooting from beyond the arc. Later that year, he hit 6-of-9 3-pointers—in only 21 minutes—to help Duke beat No. 15 Florida State on the road.
More than two-thirds of his made baskets as a Blue Devil have been 3-pointers, connecting on more than 40 percent of his attempts.
But shooters have hot streaks and cold streaks, and he finished his junior season frigid. In the final six contests, including the team’s one-and-done loss to 15th-seeded Lehigh in the NCAA tournament, he made 2-of-17 from beyond the arc.
And since then, he hasn’t played in a game for Duke, excluding the two exhibitions to start this season in which he was 0-for-8 on 3-pointers.
In that time away, Dawkins never lost the trust of the one player who has the most say in how often he’ll get to shoot the ball: point guard Quinn Cook.
“I’m going to get an assist from Andre every time I give him the ball,” Cook said. “I have the most confidence he’s going to knock the 3-pointer down. I feel like he’s the best shooter in the country.”
The respect is mutual.
“He always seems to find me,” Dawkins said. “I can just give a look and he knows where I’m going and when I want to get the ball. It’s great to have someone like that who’s unselfish.”
Cook is a rare familiar face on this roster for Dawkins. The team's three freshmen—Jabari Parker, Semi Ojeleye and Matt Jones—are new to everybody. Dawkins didn’t practice last year while the current sophomores played their first minutes and Rodney Hood joined the team for practice.
That leaves Cook, Josh Hairston and Tyler Thornton as the only three guys he has ever played a meaningful game with.
“You just have to get used to playing with those guys, knowing what they want to do, where to be when they do what they do,” Dawkins said.
Duke has no shortage of other players who can shoot the three well: Cook, Hood, Jones, Parker, Thornton and Rasheed Sulaimon. But Dawkins sees his willingness to patiently wait on the wing as differentiating him from the rest.
Cook and Thornton have a pass-first mentality, he said. Some of the others have more of an aptitude “to drive and collapse the defense.”
“I just have to be ready and find open spots and get into a place where they can see me,” Dawkins said. “I stay around the 3-point line. These other guys will get their share of dunks.”
While his 3-point shooting may be the same, Dawkins has grown in other respects. Cook said he hears Dawkins' voice more than he did as a freshman and is one of the team’s best leaders. He attributed that to Dawkins being a fifth-year player and feeling the urgency of this campaign being his last.
He also said Dawkins gives him pointers on defense. Though Dawkins isn’t usually publicly lauded for his defensive play, Cook noted the graduate student's physical strength can prevent opponents from moving.
And maybe the year away brought that extra level of intensity it takes to be not only a good 3-point shooter, but also an effective two-way player.
“Him sitting out last year really showed him how much he loves the game and how much he missed playing,” Cook said.
Then there are the little things. With all the new faces and the team’s up-tempo style of play, Dawkins said there’s a lot more smiling in practice than he’s ever seen. That fun, he said, will translate to the court.
After a year away from the game, that sounds like exactly what Dawkins needs.
“It’s better than sitting on the couch all day,” he said.
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