What does Duke basketball have left at center with Dereck Lively headed to the NBA?

On the whole, the Duke basketball staff has been successful in roster building over the nearly three months since the Blue Devils’ NCAA Tournament loss to Tennessee.

Four players who started every game during the Blue Devils’ 10-game winning streak that included an ACC Tournament championship are returning for next season, which has Duke considered among the favorites to make the Final Four and contend for a national championship.

The only departures from last season are part-time starter Dariq Whitehead and starting center Dereck Lively, who both declared for the NBA, while guards Jeremy Roach and Tyrese Proctor, along with forwards Mark Mitchell and Kyle Filipowski, return for Jon Scheyer as he enters his second season as Duke’s head coach.

The 6-10 Ryan Young, a starter early in the season who became a reserve as the 7-1 Lively became a regular starter, gives Duke a steady, experienced inside presence.

Scheyer and his staff sought additional post help through the transfer portal — welcoming two prospects to campus and considering two others — but all four players picked other schools. The most recent was 6-10 Ernest Udeh, the former Kansas center who made an official visit to Duke last month. He’s headed to TCU instead.

Is Duke big enough?

So where does that leave Duke with its big-man rotation for next season?

The 7-foot Filipowski joins Young and 7-1 sophomore Christian Reeves as the team’s three tallest scholarship players.

All three present question marks the staff must address during the offseason if they are to fill the No. 5 slot at center vacated by the shot-blocking Lively.

Filipowski was a revelation as a freshman, leading Duke in scoring (15.1 points) and rebounding (8.9). He projected as a first-round pick had he left school for the NBA Draft.

But Filipowski did most of his work at forward, in the classic stretch-4 position in which so many Duke players have thrived over the years. According to Ken Pomeroy’s analytics, in Duke’s three ACC Tournament and two NCAA Tournament games, Filipowski played power forward 57% of game time as opposed to 14% of game time at center.

Young was on the court equal times at center and forward — 11% in each case — over Duke’s final five games of the season.

A deep reserve last season as a freshman, Reeves only appeared in 13 games, playing a total of 41 minutes, so he has a lot of development to complete before he’s ready to play a significant role in Duke’s rotation.

Who’s coming in

Duke has four incoming freshmen, but none is a center. The Blue Devils will be aided by the additions of 6-8, 230-pound forward Sean Stewart, 6-8, 215-pound forward T.J. Power, 6-5 guard Caleb Foster and 6-2 guard Jared McCain.

One possible scenario has Foster entering the starting lineup with the 6-5 Proctor and the 6-2 Roach to give Duke a three-guard setup with the 6-8 Mitchell and Filipowski inside.

That’s a far cry from last season when Filipowski and Lively gave Duke a pair of 7-footers in the starting lineup.

Though he only averaged 5.2 points and 5.4 rebounds, Lively blocked 2.4 shots during his 20.6 minutes of play per game on average. His rim-protecting skills, plus his ability to guard players on the perimeter when needed, made him a defensive force.

Duke tried to add another body through the transfer portal that was more akin to Lively in that role, which is why 6-11 Kadin Shedrick considered Duke, making an unofficial visit to campus in April, before transferring from Virginia to Texas.

The Blue Devils explored adding 7-footers Aziz Bandaogo from Utah Valley and Kel’el Ware from Oregon before Bandaogo went to Cincinnati and Ware landed at Indiana.

Options in the paint

Filipowski wasn’t that type of player last season. He had 26 blocked shots compared to Lively’s 82. If asked to play strictly inside on defense, could he succeed? He certainly has the size.

Synergy Sports assigned Filipowski a rating of “very good,” because opponents only averaged .805 points per possession (PPP) while he was guarding them. That PPP was in the 67th percentile nationally and the shooting percentage against him was 36%.

Lively’s presence, no doubt, made all of Duke’s defenders look better, either with the eye test or using analytics, so Filipowski’s ability to play at center, defensively anyway, is unproven until the games start this fall.

Young’s experience and guile after three seasons playing at Northwestern and one at Duke make him an important player.

He played in all 36 games for Duke (27-9) last season, averaging 17.7 minutes per game while scoring 6.4 points and 5.5 rebounds. His decision to use his extra year of eligibility (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) is important as the Blue Devils need depth.

Defensively, Synergy grades Young as a “very good” defender in the 69th percentile nationally in points per possession allowed (0.8), but he doesn’t project as a guy who can play 30 minutes a night and be effective at this level of college basketball. He’s never played that much in his college career.

The lanky, hard-nosed Mitchell proved to be a strong defensive player last season. His Synergy PPP grade is “excellent.” He’s better slotted at a forward position, though, because asking him to guard a center while giving up inches and pounds in the matchup seems unfair. The same is true for Stewart, the incoming freshman.

So, who will patrol the middle for the Blue Devils in 2023-24? Ask them again.