Duke Basketball: Watch Jabari Parker Show off Skills in Summer Mixtape
It's been a good week for Duke fans. They got to witness a different side of Mike Krzyzewski—the side that loves Beyonce and street cred bouncing all over the world—and they got this nice sneak peek of Jabari Parker from a summer league in Chicago at the Nike Jordan Chi-League Pro-Am at Whitney Young High School.
Watching Parker dominate a summer league has to be like seeing an NBA vet show up. Parker is different from the MixTape Generation. He cannot leap over tall buildings or make fans fall off their seat with his acrobatics in the air. His game is all footwork, fundamentals and a beautiful jumper with a quick release.
In this video, he makes step-back jumpers look easy and even shows off a one-footed jumper, a la Dirk Nowitzki.
Parker can get to the rim and finish in style, but he lacks the explosion of athletes in his class like Andrew Wiggins or Aaron Gordon. They'll give us highlights. Parker will give the Blue Devils buckets.
That's not trashing on Wiggins' or Gordon's game. Every indication is they'll be terrific as well, and the season cannot get here fast enough because of the stacked freshman class.
But Parker is the one that is the most intriguing as far as how he will be used in Duke's offense. Coach K has big plans for him, and as I wrote about last week, you could even see rotations with Parker at center.
This video is proof that Coach K can put Parker just about anywhere—in the post, on the perimeter or between the two—and he'll succeed.
Go ahead and send this link along to your coworkers, Duke fans. It's acceptable to start gloating. Parker's game is so refined at such a young age that it's hard to imagine he'll have a hard time adjusting to the collegiate level.
