I have a high level of respect for Brad Stevens, but I think in today's culture of the NCAA he would have some big adjustment to make. Jay Wright had a 'solid system' that for whatever reason kids bought into. Kids had no problem redshirting and were humble enough to wait their turn.
Is DUKE's present team a legit 10 deep rotation?
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I have a high level of respect for Brad Stevens, but I think in today's culture of the NCAA he would have some big adjustment to make. Jay Wright had a 'solid system' that for whatever reason kids bought into. Kids had no problem redshirting and were humble enough to wait their turn.
I think this is as important as recruiting. Keeping your guys, convincing them to buy in and wait their turn, even redshirting. You could argue that we've been great at recruiting but poor at keeping guys. You're going to lose guys, but we lose a lot of players. It will be interesting to see if Jon's more laid back approach helps guys stay. Although it didn't work for Baker or Keels.
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"For whatever reason" starts with finding and landing exactly the type of talented kids who will buy into the system and wait their turn. It was no accident.
According to DBR Proctor is joining the team Thursday.
Good deal. It took a long time. I had a feeling Proctor might decide just to forget about playing if the visa issue lasted past the start of classes. I hope that he has a good year. The team will learn a lot about Australia and a great experience for Proctor
I am curious to see how Proctor is compared to Blakes and Schutt. If he is way ahead of those guys it is great for our ceiling. He is definitely on the NBA radar. If he is a stud we have NBA level talent at 4 positions and a junior pg.
He’s way ahead of those two as far as experience at a higher level of play. I think it would take both Blakes and Schutt combined to equal Proctor .that’s not a knock on Blakes and Schutt. I just think Blakes needs to show a more refined overall game and Schutt needs to adapt to the college level and show he can play defense.
He's a really good prospect, but I really wouldn't expect too much. He looks like a high 4star to me. A good seventh man as a freshman. Grandison is much better in my opinion. Mitchell is much better
I won’t go that far as to Grandison is better and Mitchell plays a different position. Grandison is a fifth year senior . He’s played against professional players and if Proctor can get his distance on his step back three he’s automatic. The only thing on Proctor is can he still get his shot off at the college level and gain separation that’s what a lot of scouts want to see. They don’t play much defense in FIBA ball.
who knows how Grandison will play he’s injured. Will it be Grandison who when healthy averaged 13 points at holy Cross and his last year at Illinois or will it be the Grandison that remained injured his first year at Illinois ?
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Proctor looks to be a much better playmaker.
I think a lot depends on how healthy Grandison is. A fully healthy Grandison, 6th year senior might be ahead of Proctor and I would prefer that. But a hobbled Grandison would be better off coming off the bench. We're only 2 weeks until September, so I would like the see Grandison out there soon.
We will see but I suspect Proctor will be getting a lot of minutes at the combo guard position.
My greatest concern with Proctor is he reclassed. The staff feels he is 'deserving' of pt, however, if he gets out played in practice and struggles in games i.e. Derryck Thornton. I do not envy college coaches, particularly tier 1 schools.
might didnt see any videos of him from duke over the summer, but he has been posting vids of him doing basketball stuff
Proctor certainly has elite NBA size and length. The thing he may struggle with, if he struggles, is the speed of the game. I watched some clips and the opponents looked a little slow. he has higher upside than Grandison, but he may not be better than Grandison right away. He is also skinny, so at the 2 spot he may get pushed around a little. He will get minutes backing up Roach at least. We don't want to overwork Roach and have him wear down as the season goes on. 30 minutes a game for Roach sounds right if he has good backups, and Blakes is ready too. I am really curious to see Proctor and G scrimmage against our guys.
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He did it to attend college he could have signed with a FIBA team for this season and enter the draft next year never coming to campus .
Thornton and Proctor are not on the same level. Proctor has been playing against pros not just high schoolers.
In the clips I watched in the tourney his team just won no team looked slow and he’s able to see the run out for bigs . I don’t see him getting pushed around I see teams wanting to make him attack the basket and not let him hit his step back jumpers. That’s my only concern for Proctor at this point . On all his jumpers/threes he utilizes the step back all a defender has to do is remain in his defensive square and not let him attempt a shot .
It's really hard to project a starting line up without Proctor and Grandison. Right now I'd go Lively, Mitchell, Whitehead, Roach and Blakes. But Blakes will be replaced by Proctor or Grandison I imagine. Against big teams swap Mitchell and Flip. Add Young and sometimes Schutt and that is the rotation.
I think the starting line up will be ;
Roach
Grandison
Whitehead
Flip
Lively.
That’s the most balanced with ,
Young
Mitchell
Proctor
Blakes
Schutt
Coming off the bench. Mitchell and Proctor because they are Dukes wild cards.
Mitchell looked really good in the last scrimmage. So he's either really good, or our defense needs a lot of work as no one could stay in front of him.
Agreed. Well said.
And I am glad you highlighted the last 6-7 yrs. Particularly the OAD era.
It is a misnomer that K had the same philosophy for all his title teams. He had a short bench for about the past 15-20 seasons. But I remember this discussion back in the 2000s & 2010s.
In the 80s and 90s the bench was not so short until perhaps late in the NCAA tourney runs. There were several teams where 9 players would get 10+ mpg on Duke. The value that brought us was that if he needed to bring someone in due to injury or foul trouble in the tourney, they were seasoned and mentally tough, rather than seeing their first meaningful action in some 15-20 games in an NCAA game. And younger players got some rest in their legs over the season.
While I think that principle of using your bench early and often during the regular season pays dividends down the line still holds, In this era I also think it is crucial for the transfer portal (“If I go there will I get PT?”), and to hold onto kids who are 2-3 year players.
This year especially will be a challenge with all the talented PF/Cs we have. Going to have to find PT.
But one concern is Jon may feel pressure that he can’t afford a few lossses or a bad seeding and poor tournament run the way K could absorb those given his pedigree he built up. He may get impatient wanting to win early and play a shorter bench.
Hopefully he will give a lot of PT and that he will get good production from a deeper bench. Hard to know though …
We certainly seem to have a deeper bench; but I've said that before. I think the difference this year is lack of a Banchero type freshman (and returnees), so the gap between the bench guys and the starters may not be as big. Jon is probably having to add more new pieces than K ever did. This season will probably be successful, but a season like 2 years ago is not out of the question. That team was talented as well. I doubt that happens, but it's certainly possible. Esp. if Roach gets injured. He's the one guy we can't afford to lose. We've become dependent on instant impact freshman, and we've been lucky in that regard. it kind of bit us 2 years ago Johnson didn't pan out, but a lot went wrong. It happens.
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I was very critical of Jalen Johnson and wasn’t impressed with his 19/19 debut.
that team lacked a true identity .
I haven't read every post on this thread so I beg your pardon if I repeat things already posted. For me it"s gonna me an interesting transition year. I have all the faith in Jon Scheyer and he has or was my favorite to replace Coach K for a while not taking away from other candidates that we had been discussing for years sometimes in jest but most of the time very good discussions about it. I feel we will be good this year. As always I feel we can win the natty but most of the time like all other programs we do not. One thing like a lot of you we are very deep. Coach K of course usually played eight guys at the most. As far as ten deep goes this year it depends on developement of our new comers and staying healthy. One thing Jon Scheyer is Jon Sheyer and Coach K is Coach K and it is not fair to compare to either one so I hope we as a fan base will not say when things aren't going well is for someone to post "Coach K" would have done this or that." I do expect the usual keyboard coaches as always when we lose to tell us how we could have won the game. We have a new football coach also and that has me excited but he has to rebuild. Jon doesn't but we must be patient with him also. I apologize for this Dsouther like post. The older I get the more long posted I seem to get. I'm like that on DBB and a NY Yankee group from facebook. I'm sitting on pins and needles waiting for the season to start. OFC
It took The Cackler 1/2 of the season to decide not to coach like Ole Roy and when he became his own man he reduced the rotation and the team got better. Jon might have his own growing pains but what we learned from the Cheaters is be patient with a new coach, they'll get it right.
We've got enough talent to compete every night. Whether we succeed in March remains to be seen but it should be a fun ride with this group.
We've got enough talent to compete every night. Whether we succeed in March remains to be seen but it should be a fun ride with this group.
No identity. Who was the 'Go To'? Leadership? Role Player? Too many things were undefined.
At the end we started to finally form a semblance of an identity, but it was too little too late. The Go To player that year was Matt Hurt, bar none. Role players were Wendell and DJ for scoring, and as Mark started ascending he became a strong one in the middle. But again too little too late. We severely lacked in leadership as you pointed out.
That’s the same as no identity .
johnson was supposed to be the go to scorer never really happened
DJ and Roach were supposed to be a good not great back court never really happened
Hurt came on late on offense, couldn’t defend a lick and still stand by that . No identity other then the name on the front of the jersey .
Hurt led the ACC in scoring, so he definitely was the go-to guy. And not Duke's first go-to guy whose defense was not very good.
No question that Jalen Johnson was a huge flame-out, one of the biggest in Duke history. To borrow a phrase, he just was not into college hoops. Should have pursued non-college options.
But we have no idea what that team would have become without COVID keeping fans out of arguably the best home-court in college basketball and also resulting in the cancellation of a large number of non-ACC tuneups that could have helped a young team establish its identity.
Just a perfect storm of bad stuff.
Thought he ended up number two and didn’t really come on until the second half of the season .
that team was never going to fully come together. I think DJ always knew he was gone after the season and Hurt too. They were looking ahead . Or atleast I knew that by their comments after Johnson quit on the team .
Johnson messed that team up. Take him totally off from the start, I think they make the tourney easily.
Johnson was in a bigger rush to bomb in the NBA than Hurt and Steward
Hurt was fantastic all season long. He was automatic from 3 for a huge part of that year. Defensively yes he was Swiss cheese.
Johnson just had zero business being a part of that team. Very few players I think I’ve ever been as vocally critical of on a message board as I was with him. At least pretend to be bought in.
I don’t know if it would have been easily, but definitely couldn’t have hurt our chances.
