This Is Garwey
A dedicated post on the most intriguing Friar on the 2023-24 roster
(Ed. note: Headline is a reference to The Mandalorian, all three seasons of which are available on Disney+. This is the way.)
There was an important player I left out of my previous piece that used BartTorvik.com’s player stats filtering feature to analyze the 2023-24 Providence College roster. That player hasn’t played a minute of college ball and yet The Athletic NBA Draft expert Sam Vecenie has him 10th in his 2024 mock, which – even if Vecenie is, by his admission, “coming out of the box a bit hot” with his ranking of Garwey Dual — makes the peripatetic incoming freshman the best NBA prospect on the team.
What do we know about Dual? He’s a 6-foot-5 guard with a 6-foot-11 wingspan (the Nike Hoops Summit in the spring cut a half-inch from each measurement). He’s got an otherworldly crossover that has made him hard to keep out of the lane. He has the potential to make an impact on defense both on an off the ball (pressuring defenders, chase-down blocks, and the like), and he is also an adept passer. He has shown the ability to knock down 3-pointers, but his jumper is considered a work-in-progress.
In this review of Dual’s performance as a member of the World Team at the Nike Hoops Summit (start at 16:45) by the No Ceilings Podcast (Tyler Metcalf and Tyler Rucker), Dual’s defense is described as “astounding” and one Tyler said he had a crossover so quick that he wondered if he was “teleporting.” “The outside shot still needs a lot of work,” but “this kid is a problem” who “just kept making plays everywhere.”
Vecenie’s takeaway from Hoop Summit (go to 1 hour, 30 minutes here, though you can skip back a few minutes to hear him talk about Bryce Hopkins and Devin Carter, too) was that “his defensive intensity was outrageous” and that Dual had “unbelievable hand-eye coordination” and some “shake moments” on offense.
Taking the above as, in aggregate, a consensus scouting report, I’ve tried to generate a cohort of recent college players (last 15 years) with a similar profile. Here’s what I came up with as my filters: high-major underclassmen with a 2%+ block rate, 2%+ steal rate, a 20%+ assist rate and fewer than 30 3-pointers made.
Before I look more closely at the list above, I’ll first first note a few of the (eye-opening) names filtered out by the maximum 3-pointer item: Markelle Fultz, Tyrese Halliburton, James Harden, Marcus Smart, Lonzo Ball, Jarrett Culver – all those players were lottery picks who were ball-dominant players in college, and all but Smart and Culver were efficient 3-point shooters (even Fultz was!) in the season that qualified them for this list. But realistically, considering Dual’s likely role within the team and the reports of shaky outside shooting, I don’t expect Dual to attempt enough 3-pointers to make at least 30.
Back to the above table, it’s clear there’s a lot that is unknown about where Dual will fall, assuming he even fits the criteria. For instance:
Will he be a high-usage player (like Evan Turner or Edmond Sumner) or a lower-usage player (like De’Anthony Melton or Alex Caruso)?
Will he struggle with turnovers (like Jrue Holliday)?
Will he have an efficient 2-point percentage, reflective of good finishing around the rim (like Sir’Dominic Pointer)?
Will he rebound (like Bruce Brown) due to his length or struggle to make an impact there (like Sumner) due to his skinniness?
Will he have that knack of getting to the line (like Turner) or not (like Holliday)?
Will he be an other-worldly playmaking defender like Melton or more of an all-arounder like Brown (who, by the way, was just a rotation piece on an NBA champion)?
Any of these seem within the realm of possible.
If you’re looking for a conservative comp, take a gaze at Alex Caruso, the only player to make this list twice. He was an impact defender from the jump and a good if erratic distributor, struggling with turnovers in his first two seasons and only becoming more effective offensively as a sophomore due to his improvement as a finisher. Still, he played on winning Texas A&M teams and has carved out a lucrative NBA career as a defense-first guard.
Then there’s the comp of someone not on the list above but whom Friars fans may be thinking of – a long, athletic point guard who is a great passer and an impact defensive player with lottery potential. Kris Dunn, anyone? Before Dunn had two All-American seasons and got drafted 5th overall in 2016, he had two injury-marred seasons in Friartown. In that first season (2012-13), he played a complementary role as a tertiary ball-handler next to senior Vincent Council (the all-time Big East assists leader) and sophomore Bryce Cotton, a future all-Big East player. In the 25 games he did play as a freshman, he had five or more assists eight times and multiple steals nine times. Dunn had a very low usage and very high free-throw rate, while attempting just 14 3-pointers. Dual’s length is unique, but Dunn is a special athlete, too, and the comp maybe isn’t as facile as it appears.
If we call this the “Dunn Comp List,” which reduces the blocks threshold to 1% and keeps the usage threshold to under 19%, Dunn had the best career of this group, but even Damion Baugh, the player with, by Torvik’s measure, the worst offensive season on this list, carved out a good career after transferring to TCU from Memphis. Denzell Valentine, like Dunn, became an All-American, and James Robinson and Trent Forrest performed at an all-league level in the ACC. And, hey, there’s Chris Kramer again, the defense-only guard on some very good Purdue teams, who appeared on both lists.
If forced to make a prediction on Dual, I think the player in either of the tables above Dual ends up being closest to as a freshman is Melton. Like Melton, I expect Dual to make an impact with his defense immediately. Melton’s usage rate (19.1%) feels a bit light but not far off what I’d expect from Dual on a team with Carter, Hopkins and Oduro. And perhaps it’s an appropriate (or ironic?) comp, since Melton was on that USC team that came back to beat PC in the First Four in 2017, though he had only a moderate impact in that game (2 points, 4 assists and a block in 16 minutes). Once Bennie Boatwright got healthy, Melton was also not the primary 1, 2 or 3, but he started and played 60% of minutes, seeing time at all three spots, which seems possible with Dual as well. Melton declared for the Draft as a sophomore — he was indefinitely suspended at the time due to his involvement in some shenanigans that caught the attention of the federal prosecutors.
I want to know what you think: Who from the tables above do you think Dual will be most similar to as a freshman? Do you think he’s a one-and-done? Let me know in the comments.
These comps look amazing. Great insight and great work digging them up.
Also, my prediction for what we hear on the Providence broadcast next year:
“...and Providence has won that Dual!”
“The Friars are Dualing what they want” and/ or “Garwey is Dualing what he wants out there!”
“The Dual headed monster of Garwey and Hopkins”
And from Tim Brando “How Dual you do!”