Jon Scheyer explains why an NBA team should take Dariq Whitehead
Former Duke forward Dariq Whitehead was one of the prize recruits on Jon Scheyer’s very first team as head coach of the Blue Devils. Now, he’s about to hear his name called in the 2023 NBA Draft — and none other than Coach Scheyer himself crafted a video today to honor Whitehead’s time with the program and wish him luck in his professional journey.
So, read below or take a look at the video posted by the Duke Men’s Basketball Twitter account to see what the Duke coach had to say about his departing star.
“I’m really excited for Dariq. He’s the youngest player in the draft, he has so much more room to grow,” said Scheyer. “He hit huge shots for us all season long. He has great feel. He’s won at the highest level ever since high school — showed that with us as well. He’s a great teammate, he’s a great guy to be around every single day. And if I’m somebody (with an NBA team), I’m taking him knowing that he’s going to get so much better because of how young he is and the room that he has to grow.”
Whitehead’s entrance to the pros comes after an up and down rookie year in Durham that was also riddled with injuries. He played in 28 games for the Blue Devils this season, starting in seven of them, and averaged 20.7 minutes per game in the ones he was available for. In those, he put up per-game averages of 8.4 points and 2.4 rebounds while shooting 40.7% from three.
The 6-foot-7 freshman out of Newark, NJ was a former was the No. 2 overall recruit in the 2022 recruiting class, per the On3 Industry Rankings, which is a proprietary algorithm that compiles ratings and rankings from all four primary recruiting media services. He was only ranked behind his now-former Blue Devils teammate Derick Lively, and played his high school hoops at Montverde Academy.
The other top recruit in their cycle was Kyle Filipowski, who finished at No. 5 slightly below the other two, but was undeniably the top performer at the college level in 2023. Oddly enough, he’ll also be the only one returning next season. And overall, that makes it three of the top five recruits for the Blue Devils in 2022 — none of which will be picked in the top 10, which is hard to believe.