A different but related question
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Greg_Newton
True that. I will say that my issue this season has been with the team's identity, rather than player X or Y; I've been griping all year about how I wished the coaches would make a conscious decision to develop our athletic size on the perimeter and adjust strategies accordingly, rather than putting all of our very skilled, but fairly redundant 1-2 guards on the floor at the same time and letting the team sort of mold itself from that.
We had the roster for a perimeter rotation that could have included two athletic 6'6-6'8 wings and a lightning quick 6'4 star who will be an NBA PG (and has defended PGs very well), along with our two sweet-shooting 2-guards and a solid backup PG in Thornton. One of those guys probably gets left out of the 10+ MPG rotation, but it's not like we didn't have the horses to build a long, athletic defensive core and grow from there. I know there are plenty of valid arguments against this strategy, and it's probably correct to say "Player X just didn't perform in practice," but IMO, sometimes you have to focus on developing certain players from a needs standpoint instead of relying on the merit system. For example, if K had made it his top priority to push and develop one of our freshman wings into an effective rotation player, I think he could have done it, personally.
I realize there are plenty of valid arguments against this, but that's just the style of basketball I'm prone to... probably from growing up with the earlier K Duke teams, honestly. It seems a little like the "If you can't play D, you won't play" mantra has sort faded to "If you can't shoot, you won't play" as priority 1-A, which I don't like. But, you take the good with the bad I suppose.
I'd like to tackle this question from another vantage point, and I would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on this. What message would it send to our current team and future recruits if we added say 20 minutes of PT for Mike and 20 minutes for a non-redshirted Alex (I assume you would actually want more if we were to use the two of them as the primary wings).
We would be substantially reducing the minutes of:
A junior Seth Curry, who we encouraged to transfer into Duke, has worked his tail off and is a very productive all around player. He is also someone that went through a shooting slump and has clearly broken out.
A junior Andre Dawkins, who many already think get too few minutes to get on a roll, was a life-long Dukie and has one of the sweetest jumpers in all the land. Someone who could breakout on a more consistent basis at any time.
A sophomore Tyler Thornton who K says is the best defender, leader, and toughest player on the team, who is clearly improving as a shooter as the season progresses and is less foul prone than he was even 10 games ago.
All of these examples point to the fact that players improve with PT, which is what your are saying, but sitting these guys and playing 2 freshmen who are worse in practice and less schooled in team defense, in front of Seth, Andre, and Tyler would send what message? Players are not just chess pieces, K seems finely tuned to the psychology of team and player, and a change like this would surely affect the teams psyche.
If I were one of those three veterans, I would then certainly consider a transfer If I am more experienced and practice better and harder and get less PT!! It's easy when a veteran sees a guy like Austin play in front of them. He is so supremely talented, and appears to have a will that would carry over to practice/pickup/backyard ball whatever, that effort and ability would justify the greater role. But when all else is even, or more likely in this case, when the veterans are better in practice, what then?
To build a team, roles have to be given fairly, and the unusual makeup of this team, with a quintet of good but short guards, with more experience and/or talent than the 2 wings on the roster make the balancing act very difficult. For this reason I am very glad that circumstances drove Alex to red-shirt. If he had received limited minutes along with Mike, I can't imagine the lunacy on these boards.
I, for one, think this issue will be very much alive next year, when we add one more talented guard and retain all of our experienced and improving shorter players on the roster (with or without Austin). K is going to have a challenge with that balancing act as well.