Before Cedric Coward’s meteoric rise prior to this summer’s NBA Draft, Dame Sarr’s chance to be a Blue Devil were pretty minimal. Jon Scheyer had a pretty good piece in Coward and Sarr would have been redundant.
As it turned out of course, Coward shot up the draft board, ultimately being drafted #11 by Portland before being traded to the Memphis Grizzlies.
This obviously opened things back up for Sarr, who had been looking at Kansas and Illinois before jumping on Duke’s post-Coward offer.
And Sarr was pretty happy to get that offer. He told Blue Planet that ‘[t]here’s nothing better than Duke University in the world of basketball. It’ll be a great opportunity for me to showcase my skills, and I hope we can win a lot of games. I think we can do it, and I really believe in this team. We’re going to have a lot of fun this year.
“There are differences from my previous experiences, but I believe this situation is exactly what I needed and was still missing. I’m happy I made this choice and think it will be great for my career.”
In a recent Field of 68 Podcast, Jeff Goodman and Wake Forest legend Randolph Childress discussed Sarr and said that as of today, he was a very solid player but that he didn’t yet have a skill that really jumped out. They expect him to be a key part of the rotation but that he may not start yet.
Even if they’re correct, Sarr has significant talent and the most important thing you can learn at Duke – anywhere really – is to seek out a role that you can expand on.
If it turns out that Duke needs a tall defender, or a slasher, or conceivably a backup point guard, Sarr is capable of taking on any of those roles. As long as he is willing to adapt and to build around a role that his team needs, he’s going to find minutes and ways to help his team.
Our guess is that Goodman and Childress may be underestimating Sarr’s skill level.