With Bruce Pearl’s retirement at Auburn, his players are now allowed a 30-day window to transfer and that leads to some interesting scenarios involving Tahaad Pettiford.
Pettiford played very well during last spring’s NCAA tournament and subsequently put his name in the NBA Draft before withdrawing it. He’s athletic and gifted, but 6-1 is smallish in the NBA. He was wise to go back to get some more experience and refine his game.
It’s just that everyone expected him to do it at Auburn.
Now though, he’s
entered the portal and at least on social media, a lot of people want him to choose Duke. And he might fit right in. Thing is, there are some potential issues.
First, we don’t remember where it was, but someone recently go a late recruit at another school and the first worry was whether he would be able to suit up this semester or not due to a university rule. Would that be an issue at Duke?
Second, chemistry. None of us have any idea what Pettiford is like as a teammate but both Caleb Foster and Cayden Boozer have been putting in work to start at point guard. Could that be an issue? We have no idea if it would be – but it could be.
And third, money. We’re not 100 percent sure about how the House settlement works, but presumably the money has already been spent on this year’s roster. And we’re not sure how that plays out for other schools, too: who has the money to pay top-shelf talent that becomes unexpectedly available in late September? Would this all or primarily at least come through NIL? This is going to be a major test case for the new structure.
All that said…if Pettiford is interested and if he can start school late and still play and if Duke can get the money for him without affecting chemistry…it would be a great coup.
It’d be great, but it seems like a lot of ifs right now though.
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