A Nice Piece On Kyle Filipowski And His Return To Duke

Duke’s star big man still has a lot of room to grow.

Here’s a nice piece from Busting Brackets on Kyle Filipowski and his decision to return to Duke. The site lists three main ways he can benefit:

1. He’ll be a national player of the year candidate
2. The chance to win a title
3. The chance to improve his draft status

He’s certainly going to have a shot at national player of the year. There will be lists circulating soon and he’s going to be on them. Tyrese Proctor might be as well but it’s a crap shoot this far out.

Duke is definitely going to be a contender for the national championship, but that might be even more of a long shot. So much has to go right to even be in position to win it and even then, the smallest thing could derail the greatest team. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won three at UCLA, but Patrick Ewing went 1-2 at Georgetown. If you’ve never seen what Fred Brown did at the end in 1982, look it up. For that matter, look up what Chris Webber did 11 years later, or the ends of Virginia’s games against Purdue, Auburn and Texas Tech in 2019? Any of those games could have derailed a magnificent championship run.

The tournament is a massive crapshoot.

The only thing he can control is #3 - making himself more appealing to the NBA.

Assuming he continues to improve, Filipowski could go a lot higher next year than he would have this season. For instance, he showed that he could shoot the three, but not consistently well. If he can really improve that and continue to improve his body, he’s going to rocket up the lottery.

If he continues to improve personally, the first two items on the list are much more attainable.