Duke’s 1-2 Punch, Each Delivered With a Left Hand

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — To have one excellent left-hander on a basketball team is not uncommon. Bill Russell, David Robinson, James Harden, Manu Ginobili and Tiny Archibald are some of the most accomplished players with a dominant left hand.

But to have two top left-handed players on the same team — two floor leaders capable of dominating games all by themselves — is something else entirely.

Duke, a team often laden with unique talent, now features Zion Williamson and his fellow southpaw R. J. Barrett, the two best lefties in college basketball. Both are freshmen and destined for the top of this summer’s N.B.A. draft lottery, making their last few games together in the N.C.A.A. tournament a left-handers’ delight.

“These guys would dominate with either hand,” the former Duke star Grant Hill said, “but it definitely adds another element.”

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R.J. Barrett, like Williamson, is a left-hander, though it often doesn’t matter. “These guys would dominate with either hand,” the former Duke star Grant Hill said.CreditChuck Burton/Associated Press

Basketball is not like baseball, where left-handedness can be a virtue for pitchers and for hitters, some of whom learn to hit from both sides of the plate to gain an advantage. In hockey, players shoot one way or the other, and that tends to be it. In football, quarterbacks are known to throw strictly from one side or the other — at least until Patrick Mahomes completed a pass with his left hand last season.

But in basketball — as in soccer and lacrosse — ambidexterity is encouraged. Larry Bird, the Hall of Famer from Indiana State and the Boston Celtics, was predominantly right-handed. But he was so good with his left hand that he once played a game in Portland shooting almost exclusively lefty, just as a challenge to himself, and he wound up with a triple-double.

Williamson and Barrett have demonstrated they can use either hand, too. Williamson, for one, has gained attention for his thunderous dunks, and he does not discriminate when he goes above the rim. Many of his dunks have been with his right hand, or both. But two of his best stuffs this season — a windmill dunk against Indiana and a 360-degree slam against Clemson — were thrown down with his left hand.

Barrett can be just as dominant. On Friday, he had 26 points and 14 assists against North Dakota State.

“It’s great being left-handed,” Barrett said.

According to several studies, 10 percent to 12 percent of the global population is estimated to be left-handed — give or take a few bullpen specialists and the odd lefty place-kicker. But Barrett and Williamson are not the first for Duke.

After all, this is the college were Lefty Driesell played in the 1950s. And as recently as last year, Duke’s lefty big man Marvin Bagley III was taken with the second pick in the N.B.A. draft. But Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski does not discriminate.

“It’s cool being right-handed, too,” Krzyzewski said.

Said North Dakota State’s Deng Geu, who covered Williamson, above, in their game: “You go over the scouting report several times to get it locked in your head. But once the ball goes up, sometimes you forget it.”CreditRichard Shiro/Associated Press

Barrett, who is listed as 6-foot-7 and 200 pounds, arrived at the N.C.A.A. tournament averaging 22.9 points and 7.5 rebounds a game. Williamson, a bruising but athletically gifted 6-7, 285-pound forward, was averaging 22.1 points, 8.9 rebounds and 1.8 blocks.

That is a 1-2 lefty combo that has knocked out 30 opponents already. On Friday, North Dakota State asked the lithe 6-8 forward Deng Geu to cover Williamson at least some of the time. Geu said before the game that he was well aware that Duke showcased two dominant lefties, and the Bison’s scouting reports noted it clearly. Still, sometimes that most basic information can escape a defender, giving a lefty a microsecond advantage.

“You go over the scouting report several times to get it locked in your head,” Geu said. “But once the ball goes up, sometimes you forget it.”

Duke is not the only recent college team to feature a pair of dominant lefties. From 2014 to 2016, the 6-10 Domantas Sabonis and the 7-1 Przemek Karnowski gave Gonzaga a left-handed, twin-tower frontcourt. And one of the more prominent college basketball teams to feature a pair of lefties was St. John’s in the mid-1980s, with Chris Mullin and Walter Berry.

That lefty duo led St. John’s to the Final Four in 1985, a feat Williamson, Barrett and Duke hope to match shortly. The former Georgetown coach John Thompson, whose team beat St. John’s in a national semifinal that year, said the Mullin-Berry combination might have been a tad more challenging to cope with because of their left-handedness. And Thompson knew all about defending lefties.

As a player with the Boston Celtics, he was often assigned to guard Russell, the game’s most successful left-hander, during practices.

“Russ was great no matter what, but I always thought it gave him a slight advantage,” said Thompson, who broadcasts tournament games for Westwood One Radio. “You are so used to covering a guy’s right hand, and then he goes up with the other hand, and it might give him that split-second he needs to finish.”

Thompson also believes lefties have a slight advantage on defense, too, for the same reason. Opponents are not used to facing them.

Hill, who played 18 seasons in the N.B.A. and in three national championship games with Duke, said left-handed players often gave him headaches. “When you are facing an elite left-handed player, you have to be really focused and locked in and guard them a little differently,” he said.

Covering a superstar like Harden or Ginobili was never easy, he said. But even some left-handed role players, like Thaddeus Young, in particular, caused him grief.

“Young used to give me problems,” Hill said. “You think, ‘Is it because he’s a lefty?’ I don’t know for sure, but I always wondered that.”

Williamson and Barrett do not pose problems just because they are left-handed. But on top of all that size and talent, it’s just one more thing for teams to contend with.

“It’s amazing to see,” Barrett said. “You don’t really know which way we’re going to go.”

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