During Countdown to Craziness in October 2023, a seven-foot sophomore walked onto the Cameron Indoor Stadium stage wearing sunglasses and a trench coat. He opened the coat to reveal a saxophone he had borrowed from the Duke marching band. Then he played it — well — to the delight of several thousand screaming Cameron Crazies and a bench full of future NBA lottery picks who could not believe what they were watching. The video went viral. It remains, for many Duke fans, the defining image of Stanley Borden's time in Durham.
Stanley Scott Borden was born on October 7, 2002, in New York City, the son of Rozita and Scott Borden. He has a sister, Loreen. His grandfather, also named Stanley Borden, played basketball at Mississippi State — the game ran in the bloodline, even if the geography did not stay constant. The family relocated to Istanbul, Turkey, where Stanley grew up, attended the Istanbul International Community School, and became one of the most unusual basketball prospects in the world: a seven-foot American-born, Portuguese-citizen, Istanbul-raised teenager playing for the Besiktas J.K. U18 team in one of Europe's top professional club systems.
He played two seasons with Besiktas's youth program and led his international school to its first CEESA (Central-Eastern European Schools Association) Division A Championship. He also played tennis. He speaks five languages. He holds dual citizenship in Portugal, which made him eligible for the Portuguese U20 National Team — and in the summer of 2021, he represented Portugal at the FIBA European Group A Challenger, averaging 7.6 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.2 assists, and 1.0 steals per game.
Then, in September 2021, Stanley Borden walked into the Duke basketball offices and asked to be a walk-on.
Duke Basketball Report captured the moment perfectly: "How often do you have a 7-0 player tell you he wants to walk on? And how often does a guy like that play for anything like the Portuguese U20 National Team?" The staff said yes. Mike Krzyzewski, in his 42nd and final season, was not going to turn down a seven-footer who wanted to work. The last seven-foot walk-on anyone at Duke Basketball Report could remember turning out well? Dikembe Mutombo at Georgetown.