#826 - KJ Conklin, Alexander Powell join Duke staff

We’re back with Episode 826. As Jason is in the early days of his vacation, Donald is joined by Scott Rich to discuss a couple of new additions to the Duke Men’s Basketball program.

First, Duke has added KJ Conklin as a new assistant coach to replace Evan Bradds, who left this offseason to become the new head coach at his alma mater, Belmont. Conklin, like Bradds, has G League coaching experience and is one of the bright young basketball minds who continues Scheyer’s desire to remain ahead of the times. We discuss his addition to the coaching staff and what he brings to the table.

We then discuss the addition of Alexander Powell, who will occupy a newly created role: executive director of basketball. More importantly, Powell is a NBA guy who has excelled in salary cap management as well as analytics…for the first time, you’ll hear Donald say the word “quantitative” on a podcast! Powell is here in this new role to help Duke continue to navigate the NIL universe and remain current while also figuring out how to maintain the rising NIL numbers and keep rosters together while the program continues to push forward. Scott also gets to discuss his favorite starting 5 that Donald and Jason covered on the previous episode.

We close out the show with a tribute to Liddy Grantland, who graduated from her battle with cancer over the weekend. Her father, John Grantland, is a longtime emailer and supporter of the show and Donald, Scott, and Jason send our heartfelt condolences to John, his family, and everyone who knew Liddy well and supported her during her life and courageous fight. Liddy was very active with the Duke Chapel Board and the Duke Wesley Fellowship, and we encourage any donations in her memory to Duke Wesley at https://www.dukewesley.org/liddy.

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