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.