Did RJ Barrett get a raw deal at Duke?

RJ Barrett’s high school coach went on the record to say that his former player should have gotten a lot more attention at Duke.

When RJ Barrett put his name on the dotted line to play his freshman year at Duke, he knew that he would play Robin to Zion Williamson’s Batman.

If he wanted the star treatment while he was in college, he could have gone to Arizona, Texas, or UCLA, one of the numerous schools that were chasing after the phenom.

He was, without a doubt, one of the most exciting basketball prospects in college basketball last season, but by choosing Duke, he knew that his star power would be dimmed by Zion, the most exciting prospect since Earth came into creation.

During his time at Duke, Barrett admirably played the role of sidekick to Zion, never once complaining about being shadowed by his extremely athletic teammate.

However, his high school coach saw it differently as, in an interview with USA Today, Kevin Boyle, head coach of the powerful Montverde Academy in Florida, said that Barrett has certainly made a case for being the first player off the draft board this year.

"“You have an incredible player in Zion Williamson, and obviously they’re both great players.,” Boyle said. “You can make a great argument for both to be No. 1 in the Draft. And Zion deserved all the attention, but RJ probably deserved more attention than he received.”"

While we certainly can’t argue that Barrett has indeed made the case to be the No. 1 pick, the last part of that quote had us thinking. Did RJ Barrett really get a raw deal as Zion’s Robin last season?

I do see why some would make that argument, however, even with the sun-bright star power of Zion, RJ still managed to get quite a bit of attention from the press, just not as much as Zion.

So no, we don’t think RJ got a raw deal at Duke. He signed there knowing full well he would get overshadowed by Zion and was totally fine with it. Everyone else should be as well.