Been very busy recently, but I wanted to respond to (some of) the rest of Jumbo's reply to me.
I don't expect Singler or Scheyer to be tired at the beginning of conference play. It's at the end of the season where I expect excess minutes to catch up to them. For the record, my main issue is playing our guys 35-38 minutes against inferior competition (OOC opponents on our home floor, weak OOC opponents on neutral floors) when Duke builds enormous leads, and when those guys are on the floor when it's unnecessary. In other words, I think it's a mistake for Singler and Shcheyer to be on the floor with less than 6-8 minutes to go in the second half when Duke is up by 20+. The BC game was a prime example, as both Scheyer and Singler were on the floor with 6:30 minutes left and up 23. There have been several other games when those two players have been on the floor when they should have been subbed out at least 2-4 minutes earlier. Those are valuable minutes which could be used to give young players like Dawkins and Kelly extra run, in addition to some rest for Singler and Scheyer. Regardless of whether you think that matters a couple of minutes in the grande scheme of things matter, it is still a few minutes less during which those kids could injure themselves in a game where the outcome has been thoroughly decided.
Anyway, I agree that Singler last season indeed did not suffer any adverse affects from those minutes early in the season. I was incorrect to include Singler's sophomore season among the examples of players wearing down or tiring due to heavy minutes throughout the season. However, Scheyer and Henderson shot poorly during the tournament last season, and Redick's final stretch run was good evidence for those who think Duke's star players wear down due to excessive minutes. Furthermore, Singler only shot 5/13 in the loss against Villanova. While that certainly looked good in comparison to his teammates, it was still not a good performance in general. I will concede that Singler did NOT wear down, and I am not saying otherwise, but to say that he scored 15 points on 13 shots, shooting less than 40%, does not mean he shot well nor played well.
And as for saying that "sticking Scheyer and Singler on the bench a few extra minutes each game won't do anything" to develop Dawkins, I disagree. It is my opinion that freshmen learn so much from playing time and experiencing real game minutes, especially talented freshman such as Dawkins who must adept to the dramatic differences in speed and skill from the high school game to the college game. Especially since I think Dawkins, on average, has played at least 5 minutes too few over the course of the season. Those 5 minutes are significant for a freshman of the talent-level of Dawkins. And many of those 5 minutes could easily be accrued by sitting Scheyer and Singler in blowouts, when instead they play several more minutes than is necessary when the outcome of the game has been decided. Even Bob Knight, in the final few minutes of the BC game, suggested that Coach K would probably have wished he had given Dawkins more playing time. If Knight thought that at the end of the BC game, I guarantee you he would say the same thing in several of Duke's other convincing wins.
And something I will address very quickly which I feel strongly about: practicing well and earning minutes for actual games during practice is overrated. I have seen both you and others say that players earn minutes in practice, and if they are not playing well in practice, they do not deserve minutes. Guys like Dawkins and Kelly are matched up against the same players every day in practice. I assume Kelly will usually be guarding Singler or Thomas in practice, and Dawkins would be guarding guys like Scheyer and Smith in practice. If not those players, they are most likely guarding walk-ons. The players that they will face in real games are so much different than the very limited amount of players they can guard in practice. Similarly, the weaknesses that Dawkins and Kelly display during practice guarding certain players with defined skillsets will not always be the same weaknesses they will display defending real opponents. Not only do you not know for certain that Dawkins and Kelly are not "earning" the minutes in practice (how do you know for sure that's it's not a result of K simply tightening his rotation excessively?), but not practicing well should not always mean that these kids cannot contribute during games.
That issue is something I will address more specifically at another time, but I thought it was something worth addressing in a preliminary fashion since the tendency to use it as rationale for limiting minutes irks me.
Here we go again with the misplaced and uncalled for sarcasm. When did I bring up the minutes of the GT bench? When did I say that it mattered whatsoever?
I am bringing up the importance of developing Duke's bench and better employing Duke's bench players so that Duke benefits. How Paul Hewitt utilizes his bench does not matter to me, nor have I suggested that it does.
If you think that an opposing team's bench minutes should dictate how many minutes Duke bench should get in general, that's fine. But that's not relevant to the context of our conversation.
I have to go, but I will address your last points about Dawkins and Kelly, who I believe are important to the future success of this team, in the next couple of days.