Duke Recruiting General Discussion

[childress22]

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?

 

[CMon85]

SeanMay, I agree with you that the usage should've been very similar between Parker and Hood. I still think that season was a MAJOR failure to have two players that good and have the season we did. But then I look at our FC that year and we had zero rim protection. I think Marcus Lee made a mistake choosing UK over Duke that year. UK, as always, had a stacked FC and Lee had 20mpg staring him in the face. We land him and even out the usage between Parker/Hood and I think we could've been a sweet 16 team.

 

[CMon85]

I'm all over the map with this post but here goes:


In K's defense, if you look at most of our teams over the last decade, we've had a glaring hole in an important position. Usually PG or C. I don't think K can be a contender with one of those positions being a weakness. They're a strength this year so yes, it's put up or shut up as someone said earlier.

And to go completely opposite of what I just said, I don't think it's fair to say "freshman aren't ready to play defense". Cal has a roster full of freshmen and sophomore almost every year and almost every year he has an elite defense. Defense comes from coaching, recruiting players who are laterally quick and high IQ ball players IMO. We usually have fast guys but they're slow laterally. And I've disagreed with K's defensive philosophy almost every season.

 

[rome8180]

I'll also say that last season you could argue that Kennard's usage needed to be higher and Tatum's lower, especially while Tatum was figuring it out. Tatum finished with a 111 ORTG on 26% usage, while Kennard was 130 (!) on 24%.

 

[rome8180]

I'm all over the map with this post but here goes:


In K's defense, if you look at most of our teams over the last decade, we've had a glaring hole in an important position. Usually PG or C. I don't think K can be a contender with one of those positions being a weakness. They're a strength this year so yes, it's put up or shut up as someone said earlier.

And to go completely opposite of what I just said, I don't think it's fair to say "freshman aren't ready to play defense". Cal has a roster full of freshmen and sophomore almost every year and almost every year he has an elite defense. Defense comes from coaching, recruiting players who are laterally quick and high IQ ball players IMO. We usually have fast guys but they're slow laterally. And I've disagreed with K's defensive philosophy almost every season.

Isn't this at least sort of the coaching staff's fault?

 

[DurhamSon]

It's also a narrative now that Allen made a mistake not leaving after his sophomore year. As for Jackson, he certainly had enough flaws evident after his freshman year such that it led him going in the 2nd round, even though they didn't stop him from leaving.

For every Amile and Cook it seems like K is winding up with a few Jeters (5*), Matt Jones'(4*, #34), Thorntons, Sulaimons, Boldens, Hairstons, etc And i'll have to see it before I believe it with O'Connell, Javin, types.

Maybe we get an Amile/Cook, or Ryan Kelly (forget Mason/Nolan/Singler staying four years in today's climate). Are we getting 3-4 of them concurrently? I wanted Caleb Swanigan so bad -- especially when we ended up with terrible Jeter instead -- and even he was a two year guy, only cause it's 2017 and not 2007.

As it stands I just think the odds are slightly better rolling the dice on talent than trying to build that upperclassman team of sub-5* guys when we've had so few it feels like that could be actual starters on a title team. Maybe it works 5 years ago when you could reliably keep anyone outside the top 15 for 3 years, whereas now it feels like literally every kid with five stars thinks they are OAD material and is willing to risk the second round to try. At that point I feel the OAD dice roll is better than K's talent evaluation skills of those sub-5* players.

And it has been beaten to death but i'd like to avoid comparisons to schools like UNC that have upperclassman that wouldn't be upperclassmen at Duke or UCLA or UK. Let's see how they truly do going forward with the sub-5* roster they'll finally have.

I don't think the recent misses are cause enough to abandon the only chance at program stability. I also think we should continue to recruit great OADs like most of us do. Balance between the two approaches is I think what most people want. If we have a class of four guys, having two amazing OAD talents plus two guys ranked in the 20-40 range (that based on skill sets aren't huge threats to leave before their junior years), that's my ideal.

I agree UNC comparisons are dumb because they don't get OAD commits. I think the better current comparisons for my desired approach are Kansas and Arizona, but perhaps with slightly greater emphasis on OADs- those schools seem to often have one great OAD at a time rather than two.

You can have a stable program but if your sub-5* players are more like Chase Jeter and Matt Jones, you aren't doing shit in terms of competing for a title. That's what I keep saying; it's not a given now that the staff could recruit a stable of 3-4 year players - and even with 1 OAD a year you would still need 3-4 others starting - that could start on a title team. Obviously some schools are pulling that off, but do you trust this staff's current talent evaluation abilities to be able to? Cause they're hit and miss on anyone that isn't top 5 it seems.

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.

 

[wtbball21]

On the 2014 team, Parker and Hood probably did warrant heavy usage. However, Parker did not deserve 40% more usage than Hood. Think about that discrepancy (32% Parker vs. 23% Hood) and compare it to the hypothetical difference in potential efficiency, if they were given the same usage, between Parker and Hood. I'm not sure freshman Parker should have even been the first option over RS sophomore Hood.

Parker was great, but he wasn't LeBron (30% usage last season) compared to Hood's Channing Frye (19%) or something. K was letting Parker do whatever he wanted in that offense, and when the player is that good and the overall results are that good, you can get away with it.

I understand that higher usage leads to lower individual efficiency, and that younger players can't be expected to execute the highest level of offense. When you think along those lines, though, why would anyone believe an offense is best served with an 18-year-old taking on such a massive burden? The only OAD people would point to as a success story as a freshman who was given usage close to Parker's was Kevin Durant, and even Durant had lower usage than Parker (slightly). I can't rationalize giving any freshman a bigger role in the offense than Durant, but K did it.

Clearly, K was doing something right with that 2014 team, since they had the #1 offense in the country. I just wonder if they could have survived that first round game against the 14-seed if something had been done very differently, not just with the obviously terrible defense, but also with the elite offense that could have been significantly better still. One game doesn't tell the story, but Parker and Hood combined for 20 points on 24 shots and 5 assists to 7 turnovers against Mercer, while Quinn Cook had 23 points on 11 shots and 4 assists to 2 turnovers.

The 2014 offense is probably the hardest one to argue about being "ugly," since its results over the entire season were the best in the country. As for the other examples, I don't think I can ever be convinced that I should have enjoyed watching the Okafor offense, the Rivers offense or anything about the 2017 season, and the objective results were no better than what the usual top 2-5 talent level should be expected to produce.

To the question of which coach out there has run a smarter offense than K does these days, my personal answer is K in 2010. Offense driven by perimeter players who could all pass and shoot, and who all generally took good shots. Each of Nolan, Scheyer and Singler was between 23-24% usage. Bigs set picks, rolled to the rim, went for rebounds, finished around the rim. None of those guys have flourished in the NBA, yet K made it work so well on offense with that group. It wasn't the Warriors, but the basics were there - skilled perimeter players sharing possessions and minimizing turnovers, lots of PnR, bigs who focused on rebounds and layups, and close to zero post-ups. The irony is that 2010 took far fewer 3s than 2014, so K's greatest offensive creation - basically 2010 with more 3s - is still out there for him to achieve. The 2018 roster full of OADs who can't shoot is probably not the one to get there, unfortunately.

At the end of writing this post, I'm simply sad because it's not worth the effort to discuss Duke's defense to this same extent, since it's unrealistic for the defense to be good in any season now.

In comparing 2010 vs. 2014 offensively, 2014 was simply the better offense over the course of the entire season. 2014 was 7 points per 100 possessions better than 2010. It may not have been as aesthetically pleasing, but the offense was no doubt better.

Looking at the 2010 offense, the only reason those 3 guys were in the 23-24% usage range was because they never turned the ball over. They had 27, 26 and 24% shooting rates. The top three this past year were Tatum, Kennard and Allen at 26%, 26% and 25%. And actually, they all had very similar usage rates to Smith, Scheyer and Singler. Amile had a nearly identical usage rate to Zoubs and same with Matt Jones and Lance Thomas. The one big difference was Frank Jackson got more minutes and was utilized more than Andre Dawkins. So in turn, this past season, had a similar offensive profile to 2010 in terms of usage.

I agree with you in the sense that a perfect offense should be centered around 2 or 3 guys with bigs serving as screeners and finishers, but Duke has gone away from this in recruiting these wings to play the second big spot.

Also, 2015 team, 122.5 adjusted offensive efficiency. Okafor a 116 offensive rating on 28% usage while shooting 66.5% from the floor was not a bad offense just because you don't like how often they threw the ball into the low post. You act like they were 30th in offense that year or something.

The only thing that matters for this season and any upcoming one with Coach K is defense. If they have a top 25 defense, they should be the favorite to win it all. If not, then no chance.

 

[rome8180]

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.

 

[wtbball21]

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?

I don't buy this. If you believe that K's defensive system works and that he just needs guys to be in the system for longer periods of time then you simply have to stop recruiting OAD. You would have to go the Louisville, UNC, Michigan State, Villanova route, where you are getting top 75 guys and developing them, otherwise, you will never have a good defense with all of these OAD's.

My issue is that he is either not prioritizing defense in practice and or not playing the correct defensive system. No top 10 defenses since 2011. I do not buy that he is just on a run of recruiting guys that can not play defense. Calipari sure gets his OAD's to play defense. He and K have been going at it over the same kids, so you can't say the difference is in the players they are recruiting.

All in all, either emphasize defense more in practice and change your strategy or keep your defensive principles the way you like and recruit to those principles and start taking less OAD's.

 

[rome8180]

I also wonder if surrounding potential multi-year guys with so many OADs makes them feel like failures if they don't go OAD too. I've thought that for years UK's culture has been pushing some guys out the door, not actively but in a kind of "You're going to UK? You must be OAD" kind of way.

 

[rome8180]

My comments were supposed to be directed at the DurhamSon/STPFS side of the convo. This thread is too active.

 

[childress22]

You can have a stable program but if your sub-5* players are more like Chase Jeter and Matt Jones, you aren't doing shit in terms of competing for a title. That's what I keep saying; it's not a given now that the staff could recruit a stable of 3-4 year players - and even with 1 OAD a year you would still need 3-4 others starting - that could start on a title team. Obviously some schools are pulling that off, but do you trust this staff's current talent evaluation abilities to be able to? Cause they're hit and miss on anyone that isn't top 5 it seems.

1) I think your first sentence overly simplifies a point. Obviously, having Matt around didn't keep us from having good teams and winning a title. If you mean a scenario in which Jeter and Jones are flat-out the two best players on the team, then of course I concede your point. However,

2) Both Jones and Jeter had their roles shaped by being complementary pieces on teams with OAD talent (in particular, offensive talent). So they were used as low-usage, defensive rotation players. That may indeed be what they're both well-suited for (much to Chris Jeter's ire), but ostensibly in a situation without one or two of those elite scorers each year, these guys develop differently.

 

[childress22]

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.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Javin is like the poster child for our complaints about the defense on this board. Looked totally lost on defense mentally last season, as almost every freshman does, while having all the physical tools to be a great college defender.

There should be some thought given to Javin at center, maybe not this season with how the roster is imbalanced, but in the future when Javin is potentially a college-sized variation on Draymond. Assuming Bolden is either gone or still terrible in 2018-19, and assuming McCormack is the best we can do in that recruiting class at center (no Emmitt Williams), what are we left with? It's Vrank and Javin - not just the perfect buddy cop movie pairing, but also a contrast that would be really interesting for K to work with. Drastically different offensive and defensive approaches depending on whether it's big ball with Vrank or small ball with Javin.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

On the 2014 team, Parker and Hood probably did warrant heavy usage. However, Parker did not deserve 40% more usage than Hood. Think about that discrepancy (32% Parker vs. 23% Hood) and compare it to the hypothetical difference in potential efficiency, if they were given the same usage, between Parker and Hood. I'm not sure freshman Parker should have even been the first option over RS sophomore Hood.

Parker was great, but he wasn't LeBron (30% usage last season) compared to Hood's Channing Frye (19%) or something. K was letting Parker do whatever he wanted in that offense, and when the player is that good and the overall results are that good, you can get away with it.

I understand that higher usage leads to lower individual efficiency, and that younger players can't be expected to execute the highest level of offense. When you think along those lines, though, why would anyone believe an offense is best served with an 18-year-old taking on such a massive burden? The only OAD people would point to as a success story as a freshman who was given usage close to Parker's was Kevin Durant, and even Durant had lower usage than Parker (slightly). I can't rationalize giving any freshman a bigger role in the offense than Durant, but K did it.

Clearly, K was doing something right with that 2014 team, since they had the #1 offense in the country. I just wonder if they could have survived that first round game against the 14-seed if something had been done very differently, not just with the obviously terrible defense, but also with the elite offense that could have been significantly better still. One game doesn't tell the story, but Parker and Hood combined for 20 points on 24 shots and 5 assists to 7 turnovers against Mercer, while Quinn Cook had 23 points on 11 shots and 4 assists to 2 turnovers.

The 2014 offense is probably the hardest one to argue about being "ugly," since its results over the entire season were the best in the country. As for the other examples, I don't think I can ever be convinced that I should have enjoyed watching the Okafor offense, the Rivers offense or anything about the 2017 season, and the objective results were no better than what the usual top 2-5 talent level should be expected to produce.

To the question of which coach out there has run a smarter offense than K does these days, my personal answer is K in 2010. Offense driven by perimeter players who could all pass and shoot, and who all generally took good shots. Each of Nolan, Scheyer and Singler was between 23-24% usage. Bigs set picks, rolled to the rim, went for rebounds, finished around the rim. None of those guys have flourished in the NBA, yet K made it work so well on offense with that group. It wasn't the Warriors, but the basics were there - skilled perimeter players sharing possessions and minimizing turnovers, lots of PnR, bigs who focused on rebounds and layups, and close to zero post-ups. The irony is that 2010 took far fewer 3s than 2014, so K's greatest offensive creation - basically 2010 with more 3s - is still out there for him to achieve. The 2018 roster full of OADs who can't shoot is probably not the one to get there, unfortunately.

At the end of writing this post, I'm simply sad because it's not worth the effort to discuss Duke's defense to this same extent, since it's unrealistic for the defense to be good in any season now.

In comparing 2010 vs. 2014 offensively, 2014 was simply the better offense over the course of the entire season. 2014 was 7 points per 100 possessions better than 2010. It may not have been as aesthetically pleasing, but the offense was no doubt better.

Looking at the 2010 offense, the only reason those 3 guys were in the 23-24% usage range was because they never turned the ball over. They had 27, 26 and 24% shooting rates. The top three this past year were Tatum, Kennard and Allen at 26%, 26% and 25%. And actually, they all had very similar usage rates to Smith, Scheyer and Singler. Amile had a nearly identical usage rate to Zoubs and same with Matt Jones and Lance Thomas. The one big difference was Frank Jackson got more minutes and was utilized more than Andre Dawkins. So in turn, this past season, had a similar offensive profile to 2010 in terms of usage.

I agree with you in the sense that a perfect offense should be centered around 2 or 3 guys with bigs serving as screeners and finishers, but Duke has gone away from this in recruiting these wings to play the second big spot.

Also, 2015 team, 122.5 adjusted offensive efficiency. Okafor a 116 offensive rating on 28% usage while shooting 66.5% from the floor was not a bad offense just because you don't like how often they threw the ball into the low post. You act like they were 30th in offense that year or something.

The only thing that matters for this season and any upcoming one with Coach K is defense. If they have a top 25 defense, they should be the favorite to win it all. If not, then no chance.

We agree on basically everything, except that I am using the word "ugly" subjectively rather than as a synonym for "bad" or "inefficient." I think that's the main disconnect in our thoughts. I also believe an offense that is already elite can be improved significantly, and it's going to require that for Duke to win another title, since I have no hope that K will figure out defense again. What's bizarre to me is that his student, Collins, is getting better defense out of much less talent, presumably using what he has learned as a player and assistant coach under K.

On Okafor, there is plenty of straightforward evidence that Duke's offense was worse with him on the court that season. I'm not saying 2015 had bad offense. I'm saying it was not fun to watch in my subjective opinion and also could have been much better efficiency-wise, even though it was already elite to begin with.

 

[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.

I am with you, Rome. It's really only been the last three classes that have been devoid of potential 3-4 year talent. The 2015 class was supposed to be that class and then Thornton's dad/trainer were nuts, Jeter turned out to be a whiff, Kennard turned out to be too good to stay (honestly, a good problem to have). 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.

I do think 2018 could be a good class long term. Getting two out three of the OAD guys in Williamson, Reddish and Barrett is a good goal. I think Garland and Jones don't have the size, athleticism (or shooting ability in Jones's case) to be OAD. McCormack and Williams look like longer term college guys, no clue if they can get either though. Disappointing that they moved to slowly on Cole Swider and Nova was able to hold on to him.

That 2013 was really, really good. That Kelly injury screwed their season. I think Louisville's best was better than Duke's that year, but that's the only team I would have taken over a healthy Duke. Those first 15 games when Kelly was healthy, they were dominant.

 

[torontoduke]

Duke has some work to do in order to land McCormack. Kansas appears to be ahead in that race.

 

[wtbball21]

On the 2014 team, Parker and Hood probably did warrant heavy usage. However, Parker did not deserve 40% more usage than Hood. Think about that discrepancy (32% Parker vs. 23% Hood) and compare it to the hypothetical difference in potential efficiency, if they were given the same usage, between Parker and Hood. I'm not sure freshman Parker should have even been the first option over RS sophomore Hood.

Parker was great, but he wasn't LeBron (30% usage last season) compared to Hood's Channing Frye (19%) or something. K was letting Parker do whatever he wanted in that offense, and when the player is that good and the overall results are that good, you can get away with it.

I understand that higher usage leads to lower individual efficiency, and that younger players can't be expected to execute the highest level of offense. When you think along those lines, though, why would anyone believe an offense is best served with an 18-year-old taking on such a massive burden? The only OAD people would point to as a success story as a freshman who was given usage close to Parker's was Kevin Durant, and even Durant had lower usage than Parker (slightly). I can't rationalize giving any freshman a bigger role in the offense than Durant, but K did it.

Clearly, K was doing something right with that 2014 team, since they had the #1 offense in the country. I just wonder if they could have survived that first round game against the 14-seed if something had been done very differently, not just with the obviously terrible defense, but also with the elite offense that could have been significantly better still. One game doesn't tell the story, but Parker and Hood combined for 20 points on 24 shots and 5 assists to 7 turnovers against Mercer, while Quinn Cook had 23 points on 11 shots and 4 assists to 2 turnovers.

The 2014 offense is probably the hardest one to argue about being "ugly," since its results over the entire season were the best in the country. As for the other examples, I don't think I can ever be convinced that I should have enjoyed watching the Okafor offense, the Rivers offense or anything about the 2017 season, and the objective results were no better than what the usual top 2-5 talent level should be expected to produce.

To the question of which coach out there has run a smarter offense than K does these days, my personal answer is K in 2010. Offense driven by perimeter players who could all pass and shoot, and who all generally took good shots. Each of Nolan, Scheyer and Singler was between 23-24% usage. Bigs set picks, rolled to the rim, went for rebounds, finished around the rim. None of those guys have flourished in the NBA, yet K made it work so well on offense with that group. It wasn't the Warriors, but the basics were there - skilled perimeter players sharing possessions and minimizing turnovers, lots of PnR, bigs who focused on rebounds and layups, and close to zero post-ups. The irony is that 2010 took far fewer 3s than 2014, so K's greatest offensive creation - basically 2010 with more 3s - is still out there for him to achieve. The 2018 roster full of OADs who can't shoot is probably not the one to get there, unfortunately.

At the end of writing this post, I'm simply sad because it's not worth the effort to discuss Duke's defense to this same extent, since it's unrealistic for the defense to be good in any season now.

In comparing 2010 vs. 2014 offensively, 2014 was simply the better offense over the course of the entire season. 2014 was 7 points per 100 possessions better than 2010. It may not have been as aesthetically pleasing, but the offense was no doubt better.

Looking at the 2010 offense, the only reason those 3 guys were in the 23-24% usage range was because they never turned the ball over. They had 27, 26 and 24% shooting rates. The top three this past year were Tatum, Kennard and Allen at 26%, 26% and 25%. And actually, they all had very similar usage rates to Smith, Scheyer and Singler. Amile had a nearly identical usage rate to Zoubs and same with Matt Jones and Lance Thomas. The one big difference was Frank Jackson got more minutes and was utilized more than Andre Dawkins. So in turn, this past season, had a similar offensive profile to 2010 in terms of usage.

I agree with you in the sense that a perfect offense should be centered around 2 or 3 guys with bigs serving as screeners and finishers, but Duke has gone away from this in recruiting these wings to play the second big spot.

Also, 2015 team, 122.5 adjusted offensive efficiency. Okafor a 116 offensive rating on 28% usage while shooting 66.5% from the floor was not a bad offense just because you don't like how often they threw the ball into the low post. You act like they were 30th in offense that year or something.

The only thing that matters for this season and any upcoming one with Coach K is defense. If they have a top 25 defense, they should be the favorite to win it all. If not, then no chance.

We agree on basically everything, except that I am using the word "ugly" subjectively rather than as a synonym for "bad" or "inefficient." I think that's the main disconnect in our thoughts. I also believe an offense that is already elite can be improved significantly, and it's going to require that for Duke to win another title, since I have no hope that K will figure out defense again. What's bizarre to me is that his student, Collins, is getting better defense out of much less talent, presumably using what he has learned as a player and assistant coach under K.

On Okafor, there is plenty of straightforward evidence that Duke's offense was worse with him on the court that season. I'm not saying 2015 had bad offense. I'm saying it was not fun to watch in my subjective opinion and also could have been much better efficiency-wise, even though it was already elite to begin with.

Touche.

Going to the Okafor thing and offense in general. I think there is such a big part of the game that has to do with IQ and role acquisition. I agree that 2015 could have been a 125+ offense if Okafor was willing to focus on getting his points out being great in ball screens and just opening up/slipping off ball screens trying to get Cook or Allen open and then lurking along the baseline for dumpoffs from the guards and putting all his energy into being a 20%+ offensive rebounder. That would be his max out in my opinion as a player and probably would have saw his shooting percentage be 75% and Duke's offense that much more efficient. The problem is, I don't think it would be possible to get him or any other kid that highly rated and skilled to buy into that. While his defense was already poor, it would have been even worse with him disgruntled about not getting touches. The team chemistry would have been worse, etc. Look at him in the NBA. It's disgusting watching him play for the Sixers and literally sulking all over the court if he hasn't touched the ball two times in a row down the court.

That's another reason I appreciate Tyus so much. He understand that he had other guys that wanted the ball and he was cool with not doing much unless they absolutely needed him. In games when Cook, Winslow and Okafor couldn't do it on their own, he took over. He could have done it all season long, against any team, but for the good of the team, took a backseat.

At Louisville 23% usage
At St. John's 26%
AT UVA 22%
AT FSU 24%
UNC 29%
AT UNC 24%
Utah 25%
Gonzaga 23%
Wisconsin 27%

Against the weaker teams, he was constantly 16-18% usage. The four losses, had a lot to do with him not stepping up and taking the reigns.

My point is, that it's hard to find guys with that IQ, willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the team.

 

[DurhamSon]

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.

That's my point though, you have to go back to guys who were recruited to play ten years ago. Are Mason or Grayson four year players without injury? Mind you that some of those guys weren't starting-on-a-title-team caliber until their senior years, so you are still talking about a 1-2 year window at most, that you are hoping they reach their potential. If we're going to play the what-if injury game i'd like to think last year, if we actually got the Giles without the two ACL tears, that we were a FF team as well.

I think we can agree we're rolling the dice either way, whether hoping for more effective OADs like Tyus/Kyrie/Ingram vs. less effective ones like Rivers/Jackson, or the Mason/Amile/Quinn's of the non-OAD types instead of the Jones'/Hairstons/Jeter/Kennard who for whatever reason or another don't provide that long term value.

 

[DurhamSon]

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 in terms of talent evaluation 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.