A developed Mark Williams is likely to go pro after next year too. Lower rated players want to go pro as soon as they can too.The formula doesn’t work. Worse, it creates discouragement on the rest of the team and a failure to develop the third three and four year players, like a Mark Williams. Coach K gives playing time priority to the top recruits and until this year, where he has had to give minutes because of the pandemic, he just doesn’t give a lot of minutes to lesser recruits. A Mark Williams I could see even fewer minutes next year with two center/power forward types coming in who are major recruits. Then he gets discouraged and if we recruit over him again the following year transfer talk starts to happen. Or he just really never develops as well as could have otherwise.
You still need talent but look at Baylor or even Gonzaga to a lesser degree. Baylor has no major recruits of note and they may be the best team in college basketball.
I prefer the model of trying to recruit guys were going to stay three or four years and grab one top 10 recruit every year, maybe two in the top 25 or so, and give minutes to players as they progress through their time at Duke in their second third and fourth year. Duke would be a much better program overall, there would be fewer transfers, and college basketball in general would benefit.
Baylor brings in lots of transfer players. A lot of the programs who consistently have players stay a long time do so because those lower rated recruits are willing to sit on the bench and not play much early in their career. At a school that has the exposure Duke does, once a player develops and starts producing, they are likely to go pro. I just don't think it's that simple. In order to become that type of school, I think we would have to recruit differently for years.
I really like Henry but I'm not sure how talented he is. He is a hustle player who is very strong, and has potential to be a good rebounder.This whole "get the most talent and sort it out" argument is getting weaker by the year. How good would Henry Coleman be right now with a ton of minutes? My guess is he'd be pretty good. Obviously you want talent but there are other factors. We're not the NBA, and we don't have to be obsessed with upside.