Jon Scheyer: Duke's Hardest Working Player Is Joey Baker
Duke has a young team this year, which means the Blue Devils need to find leadership from their small group of returning players.
“This year it’s still forming,” associate head coach Jon Scheyer said of Duke’s leadership. “The thing we’d like to see from our four returning scholarship guys—Joey Baker, Wendell Moore, Matt Hurt and Jordan Goldwire—all of them have led in their own way. They have different personalities. I think it’s going to be something where sometimes, it’s by committee, not necessarily one guy that’s going to be the leader or the most vocal all the time. All four of those guys are figuring out their roles on this team. They’re all going to have bigger roles in different ways, but all four of them have done a great job in their own capacity.”
Junior Joey Baker has made a great deal of progress. He’s always been a deep shooting threat, but he’s developed a more well-rounded game.
“Joey, ask anybody in our program—players, coaches, managers, whoever it may be—they’re going to rave about Joey. He’s as hard of a worker as we have on the team. He’s a guy who always—if he’s not the first one at practice, he’s definitely going to be the last one. He has more to his game. All we have to tell him is just relax. It’s going to happen, because he wants it so badly. You love to coach a guy like that. He’s been working hard this summer, being able to attack closeouts, put the ball on the floor and being a decision maker. When he’s under control and gets in the paint, he can be a very good passer and playmaker for us, not to mention he’s an even quicker shooter. He gets shots off in a variety of ways. He made seven threes the other day in practice. I don’t want to skip over that part, because aT the end of the day, making shots is a heck of a skill to have.”
