Duke Recruiting General Discussion

[wtbball21]

In recent years we've had Quinn, Matt, Amile, Kelly, Mason, Marshall, Grayson, and Seth as solid to great four-year players. You can criticize my inclusion of some of those guys on the list, but I'll defend them. Matt did start for much of the year on a title team. Marshall played a key role off the bench. Now granted, they were buoyed by more talented OAD guys, but I'd argue that the 2013 team would have won a title with mostly seniors if not for bad luck and seeding. And I think the 2016 team may have been in the Final Four with Jefferson. That team had just one OAD.

But my general point is that we've been getting fairly successful four-year players even recently. The most drastic change has maybe been in the last two years. If we look to have less successful four-year guys in the future, it's because we're: 1) landing so many top 10 recruits; 2) playing them at the expense of the four-year guys. Not all four-year guys are going to pan out, but when you don't play them at all, they either transfer or have their development stunted.

My issue with the last two classes has been the 4 year players have been too lowly rated. Other than Javin, these other guys are rated 75 and higher. The frustrating thing is that there have been multiple guys rated 20-50 begging for Duke offers that either got them too late or didn't get them at all. Guys that will be in college for multiple years. Quade Green, Jermaine Samuels, Trae Young, Matt Coleman, DJ Harvey, Tyus Battle, Josh Langford, Jay Huff. Not that all of them deserved offers, some are better than others, but there are guys out there that can contribute for multiple years.

That's a big issue for me too. Hoping for the sub-60 ranked guys (and maybe even the sub-40) to turn into bonafide national title team starters is historically a waste of time, and seems like a huge overreaction to a couple of transfers. Maybe, I dunno, target recruits without batshit controlling fathers/uncles? God knows K has already whiffed heavily on some recent 15-40 ranked guys the last few years, so the idea he'll be able to really identify the gems among even lower ranked players is something i'm very skeptical of.

I am 100% with you. That's the other thing that has to be better and something Slater has hinted at in the past. Duke isn't on the road (especially K) seeing all these different players as much as a lot of other schools do. Nova and Louisville are two schools that keep hitting on these underrated guys. That's such an under talked about part of recruiting. Not just going by these recruiting rankings and following only the top tier guys around, but going out and finding the gems.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Agreed on all points, wtbball, which goes back to these questions about recruiting, and whether it makes sense to rely on 3-4 or even 5 OADs every season, when they're more prone to be prima donnas who allow offensive touches to affect them emotionally and affect their performance. Whether it's simply due to their youth and inexperience compared to upperclassmen or it's due to people telling them their whole lives that they're going to be superstars, a lot of the Duke OADs (in this new era of K not being extremely selective about them) have fit this description.

I doubt it's a coincidence that the one OAD pre-Irving whom K hand-picked from the heavens was Luol Deng - one of the best people Duke has ever been associated with and one of the lowest maintenance great players in Duke history. K has evolved from being OK only with an OAD the caliber of Deng, to being OK with pretty much any freshman who is among the best basketball players at his position.

Wouldn't it be easier to build a team around 1-2 ball-dominant perimeter OADs, a bunch of multi-year 3 and D guys, and multi-year undersized bigs who have no realistic goals of being in the NBA? That's the frustrating aspect of K's recruiting to me. It could be easier on him while producing better results, but he is choosing to go after the toughest elite recruits, seemingly with no vision or plan of creating a team that will work together, especially defensively.

Besides those elite recruits, he's going after guys like Goldwire, O'Connell and White, who have shown nothing in their entire careers to indicate they will be elite high major defensive players to complement the offensive workhorses and stars. We may want some lower ranked multi-year recruits, but not like this. I think it takes much more time and effort for K to land 5 top 10 freshman than to land 2 top 10 freshmen and a bunch of Marshall Plumlees/Matt Joneses, so it's frustrating that he doesn't try to build a team that fits what he wants to do each season.

 

[childress22]

I'll take the opposite approach on the Sub-Top 50 guys. I think that's the range where you can find guys who will stick around 4 years, contribute little as underclassmen, and contribute more substantially as upperclassman. Is anyone complaining about wasting a scholly on Vrankovic? Or Thornton or Buckner or Melch or McClure? Writing off O'Connell before he even plays a game or even hits puberty seems overly dramatic at this point.

That said, I do think we could do better to replace some OADs with 25-50 guys, and I bemoan the Jermaine Samuels miss more than any other recruit from the last 5 years or so.

 

[torontoduke]

I have only written off O'Connell's haircut, not his game.

 

[wtbball21]

I'll take the opposite approach on the Sub-Top 50 guys. I think that's the range where you can find guys who will stick around 4 years, contribute little as underclassmen, and contribute more substantially as upperclassman. Is anyone complaining about wasting a scholly on Vrankovic? Or Thornton or Buckner or Melch or McClure? Writing off O'Connell before he even plays a game or even hits puberty seems overly dramatic at this point.

That said, I do think we could do better to replace some OADs with 25-50 guys, and I bemoan the Jermaine Samuels miss more than any other recruit from the last 5 years or so.

I am good with having one of those guys every 4 year cycle, not as many as they have now though. Goldwire, White, Vrankovic and Robinson are all likely to never contribute meaningful minutes. O'Connell fits the profile of a guy that could eventually help, like DeLaurier. Tucker, actually does too, but I am personally not a fan of his game at all. The big issue with waiting to see if O'Connell, Tucker or DeLaurier can eventually help, is you actually have to play them some. DeLaurier played a grand total of 85 minutes last year.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

In recent years we've had Quinn, Matt, Amile, Kelly, Mason, Marshall, Grayson, and Seth as solid to great four-year players. You can criticize my inclusion of some of those guys on the list, but I'll defend them. Matt did start for much of the year on a title team. Marshall played a key role off the bench. Now granted, they were buoyed by more talented OAD guys, but I'd argue that the 2013 team would have won a title with mostly seniors if not for bad luck and seeding. And I think the 2016 team may have been in the Final Four with Jefferson. That team had just one OAD.

But my general point is that we've been getting fairly successful four-year players even recently. The most drastic change has maybe been in the last two years. If we look to have less successful four-year guys in the future, it's because we're: 1) landing so many top 10 recruits; 2) playing them at the expense of the four-year guys. Not all four-year guys are going to pan out, but when you don't play them at all, they either transfer or have their development stunted.

This would have been essentially my response to DS' argument on our recent misses of multiyear guys. I would just add that I think it's a bit more nuanced than the staff missing evaluations. I think in some respects they aren't being realistic.

If K wants a 3-4 year guy in the 20-50 range both to stay in the program and be valuable, he has to be willing to play him at least a little bit in his first year, and then he needs to be a rotation player by year 2. So he has to pick guys who can realistically crack the rotation based on their current skillset when they arrive on campus.

Semi Ojeleye was a bad choice for Duke to have made mostly because K is not going to play a raw athlete early in his career and then you're likely to see a transfer. Duke is better off finding players with at least some skills translatable to team success in the first half of their careers that K values (most commonly, this means good shooters or at least players that have reputations as good shooters). Those guys (and I think Matt Jones is a good example of the principle even though his upperclass years were disappointing) are likely to be the 20-50 guys that have the best chance to stick and help anchor the program.

 

[dukeberto]

This conversation could never occur on any other message board. This is why I love TDF.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

My contention is those guys *still* go to the NBA after a year or two if they are really that good. See Caleb Swanigan, Luke Kennard, etc. We all want to build a team like 2010 but that team would never have existed in today's climate. All i'm saying is that I think the OAD gambit has slightly better odds than hoping you can not only hit on your evals of 20-40th ranked players, but that they also won't leave you early, even if not after one year.

I think it's not that hard to find the guys that are very unlikely to leave early. For all of the NBA's buregeoning Warriorsness, GMs still seem to be enamored of measurement more than skill. There are a shitton of talented college PGs and SGs who are about 6'1" or 6'2" and thus (allegedly) crappy NBA prospects. We've done well in the last 9 or so years with DeMarcus, Nolan, Seth, and Quinn in this respect. There's probably some sort of big man version of this, too, although the typology has to include skillset: a 6'8" college PF who can stretch the floor is more of a pro prospect than a 6'8" true post player, but plenty of 6'8" post players do well in college.

Yeah, this is why I asked that question last week about Garland's size. If he can shoot really well, is a top 20 talent, but is 6'1/160 and we can get multiple years out of him as a result, I'd probably rather have Garland than pretty much anyone else left in the class. If he's a multi-year guy and we think Tre Jones is OAD, I think Garland could end up being the most valuable player we recruit for 2018.

 

[DurhamSon]

Being that small isn't going to stop a guy with a OAD mindset anymore, I think. Hell Isaiah Thomas sized Tyler Ullis was gone after two years. Especially with these kids satisfied with going 2nd round now. But I get your point.

 

[Devilsforlife]

This conversation could never occur on any other message board. This is why I love TDF.

Same. On DBR, anyone who questions coaching, recruiting strategies, lineups, or basically anything involving the direction of the program is attacked for "doubting the awe inspiring overlord that is Coach K". The other forums like TDD are just vapid. Really enjoy it here.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Being that small isn't going to stop a guy with a OAD mindset anymore, I think. Hell Isaiah Thomas sized Tyler Ullis was gone after two years. Especially with these kids satisfied with going 2nd round now. But I get your point.

Yes, there are of course some examples of this, but it's generally the exception to the rule. And I think Rome hit on an important question of whether the OAD culture that Duke has now cultivated is trickling down to the guys that never would have left early even five years ago.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

I'm the guy every year that says our defense is a lot more about our personnel than about our coaches doing things differently than they used to. Just about all of our long-term guys improve on defense with time: Cook, Scheyer, Kelly, MP3 all started out pretty unimpressive. We've been increasingly reliant on freshmen, and a majority of our freshmen come in woefully unprepared to play college defense.

This year, despite the historically young team, could be the exception. Carter and Trent seem atypically competent at actual defense, and Duval at least has some hustle to go with good strength and crazy athleticism. Grayson, if, healthy, should be pretty good too.

And then there's Javin, who I think has everything you want defensively in a college big, provided we actually occasionally value his defense over Bagley's offense and Bolden's...size? Shooting touch?

Like wtbball, I'm not sure I agree with this. I've completely given up on listening to the reports that X player's athleticism will translate into good defense. I just assume that either the system is too complicated for the younger players or the lack of cohesion, given all the year-to-year roster turnover, makes a good defense out of Duke's reach for whatever reason. And this year we'll be younger than ever so normally wouldn't expect much.

I think the better reasons to have some optimism are:

1. K has essentially no depth at guard so he may be forced to change his scheme. I think the best thing for Duke in the long run may be for the guards to foul out of some early season game, forcing K to go with Goldwire and some other non-guard in the backcourt, resulting in a second half massacre that forces K to radically shift his scheme and abandon all pressure for fear of fouls. I kind of hate any 2010 comparisons with this year's team, but it is true that the last time K abandoned pressure for a full season was when we had a similar lack of guard depth. And it's actually worse this year than it was then.

2. Duke COULD have two elite defensive rebounders on the floor in many cases, mitigating some of its usual defensive issues.

 

[rhfarmer]

@childress22 as long as Duke tries to shut off the 3 point line with overplay M2M, there will be almost endless layup opportunities. All you have to do is P'N' R any of our bigs while spacing the rest of your players out to the 3 point line. The Javin tomahawk posted by Duke MBB's twitter feed should be evidence enough of that. When Goldwire and Javin are ruining your first team's "defense" like that, it should be pretty clear that you're going to get exposed in real games.

 

[rome8180]

I'd like to state for the record that good defense doesn't have much to do with athleticism. I'm not saying anyone made that claim explicitly, but it's one of the most common mistakes when projecting defensive ability. A 40-year-old Tim Duncan had the best DBPM in the league his final year. A senior Ryan Kelly was our best defender.

Just something to keep in mind when thinking about Bagley, Javin, etc.

 

[deepdarkblue]

I'd like to state for the record that good defense doesn't have much to do with athleticism. I'm not saying anyone made that claim explicitly, but it's one of the most common mistakes when projecting defensive ability. A 40-year-old Tim Duncan had the best DBPM in the league his final year. A senior Ryan Kelly was our best defender.

Just something to keep in mind when thinking about Bagley, Javin, etc.

Yes, and legend has it that 47 year-old Matt Jones was a highly regarded defender at Duke, as well. People were telling me that. Lots of people.

But seriously, for all of his decrepitude, Matt could still occasionally hold some of those young kids in check.

 

[childress22]

I'd like to state for the record that good defense doesn't have much to do with athleticism. I'm not saying anyone made that claim explicitly, but it's one of the most common mistakes when projecting defensive ability. A 40-year-old Tim Duncan had the best DBPM in the league his final year. A senior Ryan Kelly was our best defender.

Just something to keep in mind when thinking about Bagley, Javin, etc.

Agree with you wholeheartedly. I feel like people describe one of the key strengths of guards like Tyus as being able to "see the floor" on offense -- there's a similar ability some players have to see the floor on defense. Plus motor, and length, etc., but a lot of it is mental.

 

[rhfarmer]

Defense is simultaneously instinctive and anticipatory, and requires far more effort than offense. You don't get a Shane Battier

I'd like to state for the record that good defense doesn't have much to do with athleticism. I'm not saying anyone made that claim explicitly, but it's one of the most common mistakes when projecting defensive ability. A 40-year-old Tim Duncan had the best DBPM in the league his final year. A senior Ryan Kelly was our best defender.

Just something to keep in mind when thinking about Bagley, Javin, etc.

Agree with you wholeheartedly. I feel like people describe one of the key strengths of guards like Tyus as being able to "see the floor" on offense -- there's a similar ability some players have to see the floor on defense. Plus motor, and length, etc., but a lot of it is mental.

Shane Battier is a great example of this--so cerebral on defense, anticipating everything like a game of chess, and then just out efforting everyone all the time.

 

[burksballer20]

Defense is simultaneously instinctive and anticipatory, and requires far more effort than offense. You don't get a Shane Battier

I'd like to state for the record that good defense doesn't have much to do with athleticism. I'm not saying anyone made that claim explicitly, but it's one of the most common mistakes when projecting defensive ability. A 40-year-old Tim Duncan had the best DBPM in the league his final year. A senior Ryan Kelly was our best defender.

Just something to keep in mind when thinking about Bagley, Javin, etc.

Agree with you wholeheartedly. I feel like people describe one of the key strengths of guards like Tyus as being able to "see the floor" on offense -- there's a similar ability some players have to see the floor on defense. Plus motor, and length, etc., but a lot of it is mental.

Shane Battier is a great example of this--so cerebral on defense, anticipating everything like a game of chess, and then just out efforting everyone all the time.

To be fair to our perimeter defenders, it's hard to be a good defender when you're forced to pick your guy up 26 feet from the hoop while pressuring off the ball...and playing 36 minutes per game

 

[Slap the Floor]

This conversation could never occur on any other message board. This is why I love TDF.

Same. On DBR, anyone who questions coaching, recruiting strategies, lineups, or basically anything involving the direction of the program is attacked for "doubting the awe inspiring overlord that is Coach K". The other forums like TDD are just vapid. Really enjoy it here.

That's the best part about this place- is that the posters here call it like it is for the most part. It gets nauseating sometimes on other Duke boards just reading how great Coach K is. Yeah, he is, but he's not perfect, and should be criticized for poor recruiting decisions and the team underperforming.

 

[Slap the Floor]

Defense is simultaneously instinctive and anticipatory, and requires far more effort than offense. You don't get a Shane Battier

I'd like to state for the record that good defense doesn't have much to do with athleticism. I'm not saying anyone made that claim explicitly, but it's one of the most common mistakes when projecting defensive ability. A 40-year-old Tim Duncan had the best DBPM in the league his final year. A senior Ryan Kelly was our best defender.

Just something to keep in mind when thinking about Bagley, Javin, etc.

Agree with you wholeheartedly. I feel like people describe one of the key strengths of guards like Tyus as being able to "see the floor" on offense -- there's a similar ability some players have to see the floor on defense. Plus motor, and length, etc., but a lot of it is mental.

Shane Battier is a great example of this--so cerebral on defense, anticipating everything like a game of chess, and then just out efforting everyone all the time.

To be fair to our perimeter defenders, it's hard to be a good defender when you're forced to pick your guy up 26 feet from the hoop while pressuring off the ball...and playing 36 minutes per game

Louisville plays with high up the linee defensive pressure and have an elite defense every season. This is the case because A.) Pitino recruits long athletes with quick feet, and he emphasizes defense (not sure how much K does anymore). His teams are built around multi-year, strong, long, athletic players that understand the system and the defensive standard. B.) Pitino almost always has multiple big men that are tall and long, block shots, and rebound well. Yes, his perimeter players sometimes get burned, but there are big athletes on the backline altering shots and rebounding misses. Pitino also develops and gives PT to his big men, even if they aren't particularly ready- and this pays off in a big way for Louisville.

It can be done- Louisville is a prime example. Brad Underwood and Bob Huggins also run hc pressure m2m defenses very effectively- those 3 programs are also very different than ours culture wise at the moment.

A perimeter defense of Grayson Allen-Kennard-Matt Jones is going to be pretty mediocre in any system.