So he was not going to be asked to play Center at all? I'm not holding myself out to be an expert or in-the-know here. I don't preface comments with 'I think' because that's to be assumed for everybody. Seems like I might've rubbed you the wrong way based on your insincere "to put it nicely." Sorry if that's the case.
I suppose the other possibility is that Maliq was okay with playing Center and Lampkin kicked him out of that starting spot, so he bounced. We all recognized the timing relative to Lampkin's commitment. This clearly wouldn't work within your “couldn’t be more wrong” comment, though, and doesn't seem to align with Maliq's potential landing spots and roles he'd have, so I'm happy to learn what else it was if you can share (I mean this genuinely). Ultimately, it still seems to boil down to the staff choosing Bell. Even if Maliq was okay with playing Center, he would still undoubtedly prefer Forward.
Duke can't/won't play him at Center, Bell is 'only' a 3pt shooter unless he improves a lot from what we saw this season, Donnie is starting (having to ‘earn it’ this Summer doesn’t change that fact because c'mon, we're not newborns here; we know better), Donnie and Maliq could have played together, and Bell was chosen to remain the starter at SF by every indication available, which covers my other assertions (in case any of these were the parts I was also wrong about).
At the very least, this doesn’t seem to be a money play because Duke wouldn't be the front runner in bag dropping in this scenario. They have more pressing needs to fill, bigger fish to fry(pay), and shallower NIL pockets than one might expect.