ESPN’s Updated List High On Several Duke Targets

Here’s ESPN’s updated list of the Top 60 recruits from the class of 2021. Duke commit AJ Griffin is #11.

Here are where some other Duke targets are ranked. We’re sure others are ranked too but we don’t necessarily know them all:

• Jonathan Kuminga -#1
• Patrick Baldwin - #3
• Paolo Banchero - #4
• Kennedy Chandler -#15
• Charles Bediako - #30

UNC commit Dontrez Styles is ranked #59.

And the standard caveat: for the most part, who cares what they’re ranked now? No one had Ja Morant rated that we can recall or if they did, certainly not appropriately.

Rankings are almost entirely arbitrary and cannot take physical maturation into account, much less character. So a guy like David Robinson, who was marginal as a high schooler and grew a half a foot after graduating, had no way of being rated or even really noticed.

Rankings are somewhat useful but not much. It’s really more useful after a class passes through. It’s much like the NCAA Tournament in that it’s simply not possible to have enough information on so many prospects to know who will rise.