Quote Originally Posted by jimsumner View Post
T. Parker and Jefferson overlap?

Let us imagine a scenario in which Duke has Parker but not Jefferson.

Mason starts at the 5, Kelly at the 4. Parker first big off the bench.

Mason sits, Parker plays the 5. Kelly sits, Parker plays the 5.

Scenario 2. Duke has Jefferson but not Parker.

Mason starts at the 5, Kelly at the 4. Jefferson first big off the bench.

Mason sits, Kelly moves to the 5, Jefferson plays the 4.

Kelly sits Jefferson plays the 4.

Now, this is an oversimplification. Perhaps Hairston is the first big off the bench. Perhaps Marshall is the back-up 5. Perhaps Dawkins redshirts and Jefferson plays more 3 than originally planned.

But it does show how Jefferson and Parker's decisions could impact each other.
And as I mentioned elsewhere, I don't think that Parker and Mason sharing the floor is a good defensive alignment. As such, I don't think we'd see much of those two together. So scenario 1 would instead be Mason+Kelly, then Parker+Kelly, then Mason+Hairston, and so on, with Hairston subbing for Kelly at the 4 and Parker subbing for Mason at the 5. There may be a couple of minutes per game where we go to such a lineup, but I don't think it would be used often at all.

That's why I said I don't see them overlapping significantly enough for Parker's decision to really impact Jefferson's minutes. Not nearly as much as the decisions of Bennett and Pollard. I think Parker's decision might impact Marshall's playing time, but not so much Jefferson.