Rasheed SULAIMON: He’s Better than You

Derek DeNote

I don’t think I have ever seen a freshman (excluding Calipari’s guys from last year) in college basketball come in and dominate games like Duke’s Rasheed SULAIMON. The kid can just flat out play. Whether it’s his size, court vision, or stroke from deep, SUILAMON can beat his opponent in endless ways. There are just so many things I love about his game, and I’ll be the first to admit that my basketball crush on this guy is getting downright creepy. Coach K has, for whatever reason, felt the need to bring in one-and-done guys for the past 3 seasons, but SULAIMON is the best. If Kyrie Irving wasn’t ailed with a toe injury, limiting his time in a Duke uniform to eleven games, then this discussion may be a little different, but what’s done is done, and SULAIMON it is.

State Champ Anthony D'Orazio got the best of
Austin Rivers's Duke squad last year.
Cheer, cheer for old Catholic High.

Don’t even try to tell me that Austin Rivers was better than SULAIMON because I will have to get you drug tested. All Austin Rivers wanted was to “get his;” he didn’t truly care about the success of the team because he constantly played out of the system. Yes, Rivers cemented himself in Duke history with his game-winning shot over the outreached arms of Zeller (who was terrible defense, by the way) but other than that he didn’t really impress me. There are two main reasons for Duke’s early exit in the tournament last year. One was Austin Rivers, two was they had to face the Anthony D’Orazio (shout out to the 2010 Non-Public Group A State Champions and runner-up in the TOC from Camden Catholic High School) led Mountain Hawks of Lehigh. Don’t get me wrong, Rivers is an unbelievable talent…he just didn’t belong at Duke. Rivers should’ve honored his original commitment to Billy Donovan and the Florida Gators, where Donovan could’ve constructed an offense around him and Bradley Beal. Damn, imagine that backcourt. I’m sure Donovan was just as angry in Rivers’s commitment to Duke as I was, seeing that that team very well could’ve been a final four-esque team.  That would’ve easily been Donovan’s best team since the years of Horford, Noah, Green, and Brewer.

Speaking of that Florida team, I guess now is as good as of a time as any to time fill everyone in on my most irrational thought in all of sports. I can’t tell you why, but for some reason I will never say those Florida teams were good. I know there are a million reasons why this isn’t true (they won two national championships, were very well coached, returned all 5 starters, had 4 first round draft picks…just to name a few) but in mind I never liked them.

Fun facts: You always have to capitalize
Rasheed SULAIMON's last name.

But back to SULAIMON. My love for his game started in the Kentucky game. He was 0-5 in the first half, but I thought he truly was the most impactful player on the court (he also had 5 boards and 5 assists in that half). And then bam, the second half started and hit a 3 that he shot with such confidence. Typically, freshmen who are 0-for in the game don’t take a 3 that early in the second half with that much confidence. That is when I realized this is a special kid, he plays the game like an upperclassmen. Then the same thing happened in the OSU-Duke game. OSU held him scoreless in the first half, only to watch him explode with 17 in the second half and that is when I made the statement that SULAIMON is the best player on this Duke team. I have since cooled down a bit with that thought (seeing that Mason Plumlee had 20 and 17. Sniff…pretty good stats for a game), but I will say that SULAIMON is the piece that is most important to this Duke team. He’s the engine that gets this team going, the straw that stirs the drink….or whatever other cliché you want to say about a team’s best creator. I’m not nearly as high on Seth Curry (citing his knuckle ball-esque shot as my main reason) as other people across the nation are and I think Quinn Cook can play erratically at times (but I do think he will come into his own at Duke) After those statements, it probably seems pretty obvious that I see SULAIMON as by far the best guard on this team that is missing Andre Dawkins, who is redshirting. So, I’ll go out on a limb right now and say SULAIMON is the best freshmen guard I have ever seen play, which may seem ridiculous and probably is considering I saw John Wall, Derrick (Do you believe he misspells his first name?) Rose, and other great freshman that I can’t think of right now. But, here’s to Rasheed SULAIMON, the straw that stirs the drink!