Duke Basketball: Does Seth Curry Have What It Takes to Be a Leader?

"Seth believes he's good. He is good, but he really believes he's good," Krzyzewski told the Newsobserver. "If you're going to be an outstanding player, you have to have that. He's scoring in different ways. But his quickness with the ball has really gone to a much higher level. I'm very, very pleased with what he's done."

The difference between a win and a loss has everything to do with the thought process of the player. If players truly believe in themselves, positive things will happen. Think back to every game you have seen and focus on the body language of the players.

Look at their communication skills. No one has their eyes in the crowd while huddling. Their shoulders square up to the coach while he is talking to them. Positive things most of the time.

In the 1991 semifinals matchup between undefeated UNLV and Duke, Jerry Tarkanian did not like the way his team looked at the morning shootaround.

He called his team together and told them point blank, “You guys are going to lose tonight.”

I'm not saying that was a direct result of UNLV losing to a Duke team they blew out in the finals a year before. This Duke team was different.

They had freshman Grant Hill, but UNLV were the favorites. In the game Larry Johnson had an open look and passed up the shot. Greg Anthony fouled out.

There are a number of reasons for the loss but what was said at practice had to have resonated with the players. Even if Tarkanian was trying some reverse psychology.

Compare that to Duke’s 1992 game against Kentucky. With mere seconds to go on the clock and Duke down by a point, Coach K calmly told his players they would win.

Grant Hill insinuated that he thought his coach was nuts. But when he saw coach was serious he was able to pull himself together and make that full-court pass to Laettner, who in turn buried one of the most legendary jumpers in college basketball history.

So when Coach Krzyzewski says that Curry believing he is good will make him an outstanding player, trust the coach on this one. Many players fail to make it because they do not truly believe in themselves.

Take Jereme Richmond, for example. He is 6’7”, 205 pounds and was the high school Mr Basketball of Illinois in 2010. Yet he flushed all that away when he failed to listen to his coaches, put his name in the NBA draft and then went undrafted.

Now, instead of trying to make the D-League or head to Europe, he has been charged with aggravated battery.

This is an extreme case but it makes you appreciate a player like Curry, who works hard and tries his best at all times.

It’s not like he has an inflated sense of his abilities.

If a player believes in himself, his teammates will believe in him. Qualities of a good leader.

Duke is going to need Curry to be good as freshman point guard, Quinn Cook’s knee injury is not quite as healed as previously reported. The rising freshman had surgery earlier in the year to repair a torn meniscus in his knee.

Cook has been sidelined for the China trip because Coach Krzyzewski thinks he needs to rest that knee some more.

He will be out until at least mid September, enough time to be ready for the season opener.

“Quinn’s a good player,” Krzyzewski said, according to ACC Sports Journal. “It was just going in the wrong direction for future injury if we didn’t just shut him down for a little while.”

That means during this China trip Curry and Tyler Thornton will handle point guard duties.