Top 5 transfer portal targets for Jon Scheyer, Duke basketball

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In the current one-and-done and transfer portal era, few college basketball teams experience more annual turnover than Duke. The 2025 offseason will be no different, as Jon Scheyer will be tasked with replacing the production of projected lottery picks Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel.

Replacing a Cooper Flagg-sized hole will be anything but easy, but Duke has another star-studded freshman class arriving in the offseason. This time, the Blue Devils will welcome the arrival of Cameron and Cayden Boozer, the sons of former NBA All-Star Carlos Boozer. While both Boozer twins will enter Durham with high regard, Cameron Boozer is the leader of the group as the class of 2025’s No. 3 overall prospect.

Even with the incoming freshman class, Duke will still need to address the college basketball transfer portal. Nine players of the Blue Devils’ 2024-2025 rotation are eligible to return, but that number hardly tells the full story. While only Sion James and Mason Gillis will run out of eligibility, neither Flagg nor Knueppel are likely to return. Tyrese Proctor, one of the only two players who remained with Duke over the 2024 offseason, could also join them in the 2025 NBA Draft pool.

At Duke, high retention rates are a rarity within the program. Of the nine eligible players, Scheyer would be lucky to have five of his rotational pieces back in the fall. Nothing can be certain until the team’s Final Four run is officially over. Expect another new team in 2025-2026 as the Blue Devils continue to rank highly in recruiting both incoming freshmen and prospective transfers.

Although Scheyer tends to rely on his incoming freshmen, Duke will likely be more active in the 2025 transfer portal than it was a year ago. With no shortage of potential targets, the Blue Devils are always market leaders when it comes to recruiting elite talent.

PG Dedan Thomas (UNLV)

Without Flagg, Knueppel or James, Duke will have to replace a lot of playmaking over the offseason. The situation could only worsen if Proctor enters the 2025 NBA Draft. Jon Scheyer has four-star point guard Cayden Boozer coming in, but it is not out of the question for him to also examine his options in the portal.

As one of the top point guards remaining in the portal, Dedan Thomas does not currently have Duke on his radar, but he is not far off. Thomas averaged 15.6 points, 2.0 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game for the Rebels in 2024-2025.

By bringing in the Boozer twins, Scheyer’s plan will likely be to deploy the brothers together, similarly to how they were used in high school. In that case, Cayden Boozer would appear to have the inside track to become Duke’s next starting point guard. But as Flagg and Proctor showed in 2024-2025, the Blue Devils’ offense works best with multiple playmakers on the court.

With multiple options on the table, it would not be surprising to see Thomas sign elsewhere and become the star of another program. Asking him to potentially compete with Scheyer’s stellar freshman class is likely not what he imagined when entering his name into the portal. Yet, the move could be beneficial to both sides, and Thomas is quietly becoming the top player left on the market. Whether he ends up in Durham or not, he needs to be on Duke’s radar in the offseason.

PF Reed Bailey (Davidson)

Entering the portal with 97 starts over the last three years, Reed Bailey is one of the most experienced players available. Without ever coming off the bench in his three-year career at Davidson, Bailey found a new gear in 2024-2025, averaging 18.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game while hitting 41.5 percent of his three-point attempts. Granted, his success came in the A-10 Conference, but there is a reason his name is listed among the best in college basketball.

With his 6-foot-10, 230-pound frame, Bailey is the exact type of stretch-four all coaches seek in the portal. Bailey’s three-point shooting was the most impressive part of his third-year leap. After hitting just 21.7 percent from deep as a sophomore, the Harvard native nearly doubled his accuracy as a junior to become one of the best shooters in the A-10.

By losing Flagg, James and Gillis, Duke will watch a bulk of its frontcourt production depart in the offseason. Flagg and James played like guards, but their size and mismatch potential will be missed. Bailey is not Flagg, but adding a nearly 19-point-per-game scorer to fill his shoes would be somewhat of a consolation prize.

As teams look at some of the bigger names in the portal at the position — such as Tae Davis from Notre Dame or Owen Freeman from Iowa — Bailey is likely to get overlooked. Duke has the resources to target anyone it wishes from the portal but will get a late head start due to its Final Four run. Jon Scheyer landed a gem by adding James, a Tulane alum, in 2024, giving him no reason to believe a similar player like Bailey cannot help him.

Like all players Duke recruits in the college basketball transfer portal, Bailey would have to be mindful of the incoming freshman class. He would be in direct competition with Cameron Boozer, a battle that would certainly favor the five-star prodigy.

PG Frankie Collins (TCU)

If it is not Thomas, Jon Scheyer has to take a long look at adding a veteran point guard like Frankie Collins. The 23-year-old spent his fourth season with TCU but only ended up playing nine games before a broken foot forced him to the sidelines. Before that, Collins was with Arizona State for two seasons after spending his freshman year at Michigan.

While Collins’ numbers do not jump off the page, he is as steady of a floor general as one can find in college basketball. His status as a journeyman does not do him justice, as each of the coaches he played for did nothing but praise his leadership and poise. Many might have forgotten about Collins after a pseudo-redshirt year in 2024-2025, but he could quickly re-establish himself by landing with a team like Duke.

Before breaking his foot, Collins averaged 11.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game in nine outings with TCU. The previous season, he posted 13.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.8 assists with Arizona State. Anyone looking for a volume scorer will not find it with Collins, but he is as consistent as it gets with as much experience as anyone in Division I.

Unlike a young player like Thomas, Collins would not clash with a talented freshman point guard such as Cayden Boozer. It would only aid Boozer’s game by playing with a bonafide veteran like Collins, who has seen everything college basketball has to offer. There is more upside than risk to adding a player like Collins, making him someone Scheyer and Duke have to consider in the 2025 college basketball transfer portal.

PF Malik Reneau (Indiana)

As one of the many players from Indiana in the portal, Malik Reneau is seeking a change of scenery after three years in Bloomington. The Hoosiers infamously lost their entire team in the 2025 offseason, and Reneau, who is coming off back-to-back productive seasons, is one of their top players in the transfer market.

As a junior, Reneau averaged 13.3 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game with 19 starts in 26 games. He missed nearly a quarter of the games with various injuries but reached double figures in all but seven contests he took part in. For Reneau, shooting is an issue — hitting just 26 percent from deep in his career — but his physical presence in the paint would boost any championship-level roster.

With Flagg and James departing, Duke will lose a lot of the physicality it thrived on defensively. Flagg is not the most physical player but ended the regular season as the highest-rated defender on KenPom. His length, quick hands and agility easily made him one of the best defenders in the country. The Blue Devils will miss that in 2025-2026 but can make up for it by adding a player like Reneau.

Given the way Indiana’s drama-filled 2025-2026 season went, not many of its players received much positive attention. However, Reneau’s team-first mentality made him one of the few positives for the team all season, even if it did not affect the Hoosiers’ subpar record. Reneau would be much more effective on a team like Duke, where he can give the Blue Devils valuable hustle minutes in any role.

C Magoon Gwath (San Diego State)

Magoon Gwath is not like most sought-after players in the transfer portal. He is not innately talented, nor did he record the numbers to turn heads as a freshman at San Diego State. Regardless, there is a reason he is one of the top centers available and pursued by teams like Kentucky and Michigan.

At face value, Gwath averaged just 8.5 points and 5.2 rebounds for the Aztecs in 2024-2025. Yet, there is no doubt he was one of the team’s biggest keys to success and a major reason it returned to the NCAA Tournament for the fifth consecutive season. With 2.6 blocks per game in just 25.0 minutes, Gwath received the 2025 Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year Award.

He may not have the stats to show it, but Gwath is easily one of the most interesting prospects in the portal. His seven-foot frame is wildly deceptive of his play style, as he has the ball handling and shooting to truly develop into a potential superstar. Gwath’s game has clear shades of Bol Bol and Chris Boucher with a touch of Danny Wolf.

For a roster that is already anchored by the shot-blocking prowess of Khaman Maluach, adding a player like Gwath would only intensify Duke’s defense. Maluach and Gwath share many similarities in their defensive games, making for a potentially tantalizing duo.

Offensively, Gwath is a project, but one Jon Scheyer can harness alongside the assets already at his disposal. Duke adding Gwath would be a nightmare for all other ACC teams, making him a must-target player in the college basketball transfer portal.

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