Road to Duke
Every night at the YMCA, for hours at a time, a father and son worked on basketball. Trevor Duval would rebound, set screens, run his boy through drills, and repeat the same words until they became the soundtrack of Trevon’s childhood: You’re going to the NBA. You’re going to the NBA. You’re going to the NBA.
Trevon Tyler Anthony Duval was born on August 3, 1998, in New Castle, Delaware. He attended St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark, New Jersey, where he emerged as one of the most electric point guards in the country. As a sophomore, he scored 25 points with 8 assists to lead the Gray Bees to the NCSAA state championship. That summer, he helped the New Jersey Playaz win the Nike EYBL Peach Jam — the most prestigious AAU tournament in the country — alongside future Kentucky star Isaiah Briscoe.
Before his junior year, Duval transferred to Advanced Preparatory International in Dallas, Texas, averaging 16.8 points and 7.0 assists. He transferred again — to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida — for his senior year, averaging 16.2 points and 7.7 assists and earning first-team All-America honors from USA Today and SLAM Magazine. Three high schools in four years. The basketball pipeline kept moving him toward the destination his father had promised.
By the spring of 2017, Duval was the No. 1 point guard and No. 5 overall prospect in the ESPN 100 — ranked higher than future NBA stars Jaren Jackson Jr., Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Trae Young, and Collin Sexton. He was a McDonald’s All-American, a Jordan Brand Classic selection, and a Nike Hoop Summit participant. He had a 6-foot-8 wingspan and a 41.5-inch vertical — freakish measurements for a 6-foot-2 guard.
On May 15, 2017, he committed to Duke, joining a recruiting class that already included Wendell Carter Jr. and Gary Trent Jr. Marvin Bagley III would reclassify and join them. It was supposed to be the class that won Coach K another championship. Duval was supposed to be the engine.
At Duke
Duval started 34 of 37 games for the 2017-18 Blue Devils, averaging 10.3 points and 5.6 assists per game. His 207 assists ranked fourth-most in a single Duke season. He was named to the NCAA Tournament All-Region team after helping Duke reach the Elite Eight.
The highlights were real. On November 11, he posted 15 points and 12 assists in a rout of Utah Valley — a performance that made the one-and-done timeline look inevitable. Three days later, against Michigan State in the Champions Classic, he had 17 points, 10 assists, and 6 steals — one of the most complete point guard performances by a Duke freshman in years. And then there was the dunk in Chapel Hill — Duval flying down the lane against North Carolina for a monster slam that went viral and, for one possession, made him look like exactly the player everyone expected.
But the season told a more complicated story. Duke’s offense ran through Marvin Bagley III and Wendell Carter Jr. in the post, with Grayson Allen and Gary Trent Jr. handling much of the perimeter scoring. Duval was asked to distribute rather than create. His shooting efficiency suffered: 42.8% from the field, 29.0% from three, and 59.6% from the free-throw line. At 13.7, his Player Efficiency Rating was the lowest among the starters.
The problem was structural. Duval’s game was built on speed, athleticism, and penetration. His jump shot was inconsistent in high school and didn’t improve meaningfully during his one year at Duke. In an NBA that increasingly demands that point guards shoot from distance, a 29% three-point shooter with a 59.6% free-throw clip was a red flag that no amount of athleticism could erase. An NBA scout would later assess the situation with cold clarity: “Elite athlete, but his biggest flaw is his inconsistency shooting-wise. Should have stayed at Duke at least one more season.”
Duke went 29-8 and lost to Kansas in the Elite Eight. It was a successful season by most standards. For Duval, it was a one-year audition that failed to answer the only question that mattered: Can he shoot? He declared for the NBA Draft expecting to be selected. Multiple teams told him and his family they would take him. “Everybody was telling me I was definitely going first-round,” Duval later said. “I was in the ranges of 15 and down. Everybody was telling me a bunch of things.”
After Duke
On June 21, 2018, Trevon Duval sat with friends and family at Bull Bay Caribbean Cuisine in Wilmington, Delaware, watching the NBA Draft. Sixty picks came and went. His name was never called.
He sat expressionless through the entire broadcast. "Shut up and don't say anything" — that was his approach. Inside, he was devastated. His father captured the moment with a clarity that still cuts: "It was sad at the end. Felt like a dream. All these years, you training for this and preparing for this, and the dream don't come true, and it's like, 'Wow, is this real?' Felt like we was in the twilight. Felt like a dream."
All those four-hour YMCA workouts. All those transfers. All that promise. Trevon Duval became the first one-and-done Duke player ever to go undrafted.
"I was distraught," Duval said. "I was like: 'Damn, that's messed up. I thought somebody was gonna take me.' A bunch of teams promise you stuff and tell you things. You can't even take that seriously." His father added: "It was rough — was a rough night. We stopped getting a lot of calls. A lot of people stopped calling. You notice who your friends are, notice who's fake and the tagalongs and all that."
The next morning, his first AAU coach Robert "Coach Weasel" Gantt called to remind him the road wasn't done. "Yo, man, I got some teams here calling for you, man. I know everything ain't go how it was supposed to go, but I got some teams calling for you. Just stay positive, man." Duval signed with the Houston Rockets for the 2018 NBA Summer League, averaged 9.2 points across five games at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. The Bucks signed him to a two-way contract on July 24 — splitting his 2018-19 season between Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Herd in Oshkosh.
The Wisconsin Herd was a real success. Duval averaged 12.4 points, 3.5 assists, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.2 steals across 38 G League games. He scored 25 points against the Lakeland Magic on January 6, 2019. He scored over 20 in three different games. He earned his call-up.
On February 8, 2019, Trevon Duval made his NBA debut for the Milwaukee Bucks. Two points and an assist in six minutes against the Dallas Mavericks. The Bucks won. He'd played in the NBA. He'd done what his father had promised every night at the YMCA. The kid who sat expressionless through 60 picks of the 2018 draft had reached the league.
He played in two more games for Milwaukee that month. Three games total. Six minutes. Five points. Two assists. One rebound. One make from three on his only attempt. On March 24, 2019, the Bucks waived him. Two days later, on March 26, the Houston Rockets claimed his two-way contract — but his late signing made him ineligible for the playoffs, and he never appeared in a regular-season game for Houston. He spent the rest of 2018-19 with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the G League playoffs.
The post-NBA road has been the long one. The Iowa Wolves selected him fifth overall in the first round of the 2019 NBA G League Draft. He played 32 games for them in 2019-20, averaging 6.9 points and 2.5 assists. On June 7, 2021, he signed with the Hamilton Honey Badgers of the Canadian Elite Basketball League. In October 2021 the Grand Rapids Gold drafted him; they waived him on December 15, then reacquired him two weeks later. The same year began the international chapter: Metros de Santiago in the Dominican Republic in April 2023, Manisa BB in Turkey's Basketbol Süper Ligi in November 2023, and Sabah BC of the Azerbaijan Basketball League in August 2024 — where he averaged 8.7 points and 4.5 assists across six FIBA Europe Cup games.
In the summer of 2025 he played for X Rayted in The Basketball Tournament's Lexington Regional, falling in the Round of 64 to the Auburn alumni squad on July 18. Then on March 9, 2026, the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G League — the Charlotte Hornets' affiliate — acquired him from the available player pool. He had returned to the G League with 158 prior career games and a clear directive: get back to the NBA.
Where Is He Now
As of April 2026, Trevon Duval is 27 years old and a guard for the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G League — the Charlotte Hornets' affiliate. He was acquired from the league's available player pool on March 9, 2026, returning to the G League after a year overseas. Across 158 career G League games he has averaged 10.6 points, 3.9 assists, and 2.6 rebounds. The path back to the NBA from Greensboro is short — call-ups happen — and Duval is once again on the right side of it.
He has played three NBA regular-season games. They came in February 2019, all for the Milwaukee Bucks, the team that signed him to a two-way contract after he went undrafted. He scored his first NBA points on February 8 against the Dallas Mavericks. That night the Bucks won, his father watched, and the YMCA mantra — you're going to the NBA — was for one moment vindicated.
The numbers that defined his draft-night devastation have only grown more stark with time. From the same 2017 high school class: Jaren Jackson Jr. is an NBA Defensive Player of the Year. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is an MVP. Trae Young is a perennial All-Star. Collin Sexton has earned over $50 million. All four were ranked below Duval coming out of high school.
His AAU coach, Ron Martin, once predicted a different headline: "How did this kid go undrafted? That's the headline. We're going to be watching him play on TV." That headline was right. The prediction half-came true: he did get to the NBA, just not the way anyone planned.
Duval's story is the cautionary tale that every one-and-done prospect should study. The jump shot matters. One year is not always enough. The promises teams make before the draft aren't worth the phone calls they're made on. His father's mantra — you're going to the NBA — was spoken with love and conviction. The basketball ecosystem that moved Trevon through three high schools and one year of college basketball was not equipped to prepare him for the gap between expectation and arrival.
And yet: he made it. Three games, six minutes, five points, all in the same Bucks jersey his father had imagined. He has played professional basketball on three continents. He was the starting point guard at Duke University. He is back in the G League at 27, in Greensboro, an hour from Cameron Indoor, with another chance to hear his name called the way he expected to in 2018. The story is not a tragedy. It is a long road, taken one G League bus ride at a time.