2022 NBA draft -- Meet the five Duke prospects that could go in the first round

NBA scouts and pro talent evaluators will be out in force when the Duke Blue Devils visit the Syracuse Orange on Saturday night at the Carrier Dome (6 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN app). That group will be primarily observing the work of five Duke players who appeared in or near the first round of ESPN's latest 2022 NBA mock draft: Paolo Banchero (No. 3), AJ Griffin (No. 5), Mark Williams (No. 23), Trevor Keels (No. 24) and Wendell Moore Jr. (No. 33).

While the talent of all five players is undeniable, NBA fans considering the landing spots of the quintet might be doing so with a healthy dose of skepticism. Though 32 current Duke players are active in the NBA, per Basketball-Reference, not all of the school's most heralded pro prospects have developed according to plan. Jayson Tatum, Kyrie Irving, Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson are all recent top-3 picks from Duke who became NBA All-Stars. Marvin Bagley III, Jahlil Okafor and Jabari Parker are recent top-3 picks who failed to become stars at the next level.

Where will Duke's five 2022 phenoms fall on that continuum? ESPN's NBA experts Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz considered the question, not only weighing on the notion of historical Duke struggles in the NBA but also evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, NBA comps and optimum NBA team fits for each of the 2022 five.

The evidence we have simply doesn't back that up, as it doesn't seem Duke players have been abnormally good or bad relative to where they were picked. They've had some busts (Bagley III, Parker, Okafor, Shelden Williams), and some guys that haven't quite turned out quite the way we thought (Williamson and RJ Barrett so far). But it's hard to look at the school that produced Tatum, Irving, Ingram, JJ Redick,