Andre Dawkins On Jon Scheyer

We’ve been really impressed with Jon Scheyer for a long time. If you were reading this site in 2010, you may remember that we talked about how intelligent he was and that we would kind of mentally note how long in a game it had been since he had made a mistake.

There are different kinds of mistakes of course, and some we would never have been aware of because we don’t have his knowledge and sophistication when it comes to basketball. But the obvious stuff - a mental lapse, a turnover, letting someone go - it just was exceedingly rare.

And after Tre Jones talked about how Scheyer helped prepare him for the moment at UNC when he needed to miss a free throw, and how Scheyer had not only thought about it but had done so enough to have figured the odds for where the shot would come off the rim - well, we were already sold. At that point though, he became The Guy. He’s just always shown a lot of intelligence and poise.

So we were really intrigued to hear what Andre Dawkins had to say about his old teammate in an interview with the Duke Chronicle. Check this out:

“I think I learned pretty quickly that he was really good. Probably, early pickup games—I’m coming out of high school and I think I’m really good, I was a pretty good athlete, whatnot...Jon used to kick my ass. And I’m like, man, I feel like I’m faster I’m stronger, but I can’t do anything with him...And he never really got too excited and never really got too down. He’s just kind of pretty even keel the whole time...So I assume he’d be similar...I think just his even-keeled demeanor will help, especially in those high pressure situations, still being able to think through things and make the right decisions.

“[Scheyer and Nolan Smith are] great friends first and foremost... And then culminating in a championship, you form a really strong bond and I think that they still have it...so excited to see that dynamic and if you know Nolan you love Nolan. So I’m excited to see him out on the recruiting trails. And I think he’ll really connect with recruits really well.”

We think he’s probably right about Smith being a great recruiter, although of course we won’t know for sure for some time. We also think he’s probably right about the bond between the two of them and it’s going to be fun to see how that plays out both on the court and in recruiting.

Remember how people fretted that losing Jeff Capel would damage recruiting? Duke has done all right since he left wouldn’t you agree? Scheyer is a big part of that and Smith is going to be too. It’s going to be tough to see the end of the extraordinary Krzyzewski era, but what’s on the horizon looks pretty exciting.