Luke Kennard is the Latest White Duke Basketball Player Fans Will Hate
By Jason McIntyre
You know the history: White basketball players that go to Duke, for whatever reason, become public enemy No. 1. Don’t act like you’ve never heard this phenomenon – heck, Grant Hill even discussed it in 2014, saying fans don’t like Duke because it has “really good white players.”
We’ve written about this phenomenon before, and it dates all the way back to Danny Ferry in the 80s, and then Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley in the 90s. The list is long and distinguished:
- Chris Collins
- Steve Wojciechowski
- JJ Redick
- Greg Paulus
- Jon Scheyer
- Grayson Allen
Add Luke Kennard to the list. He checks all the boxes: Very good player. (He’ll probably be an All-American.) Phenomenal shooter. (He broke LeBron’s high school scoring record in Ohio.).
Now that he’s a sophomore, you can add cocky to the list. As Kennard was lighting up Florida Tuesday night (84-74, Kennard scored a game-high 29 points) this happened:
As the rest of the Duke team gets healthy – Harry Giles is expected to start playing around Christmas or the turn of the new year – and Duke starts blowing everyone out by 20+, the always-angry twitter mob will start bashing Duke – specifically, Kennard and Grayson Allen.