A Good Matthew Hurt Profile

We missed this SI piece Friday but here’s a nice look at Duke freshman Matthew Hurt and his potential impact.

The biggest concern is that Hurt is still pencil thin. Duke has a tremendous training program though which is beyond our capacity to explain and most people’s capacity to even fathom. It’s not just diet and weight lifting anymore. It’s so far beyond that now.

So while some guys will always have a thin frame - think Alex O’Connell for instance, who is built sort of like former Georgia Tech guard Craig “Noodles” Neal. They’re both just very lean with slight frames.

Some guys are like that but still manage to get strong, or at least strong enough. Reggie Miller was ridiculously thin but he played in the NBA for 18 years.

Hurt is still just a teenager so he has plenty of time to fill out.

The better question is how he will fit in Duke’s system. He’s a very fluid player and his shooting would have helped a lot last year.

Consider what Duke could do with Hurt and Joey Baker on the court at the same time and how that would open up the interior for the rest of the team.

And as the article rightly points out, Vernon Carey is big enough to deal with most of the physical stuff, leaving Hurt free to focus on his own strengths.