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  1. #121
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by UrinalCake View Post
    Other than Billy McCaffrey, I can't think of a transfer who left who we then really regretted losing, except maybe Elliott Williams, and even then we won the title without him so we did okay for ourselves. Not trying to put down our former players, but I do think there's a reason that people transfer and a lot of times it's because they weren't as prepared for college ball as everyone thought. Like you said, this may or may not wind up being the case with Gbinije.

    I think a positive way to look at things would be that we run a high-level program and every year we bring in top recruits who are very accomplished in high school and accustomed to being the star. There's always a degree of uncertainty in evaluating players, for any school, and there's only so much playing time to go around, so inevitably some players are going to find that Duke doesn't work for them, or that they'd be better off going elsewhere. Sometimes players leave, and other times they're willing to play a supporting role (Nate James comes to mind as a guy that could have started at a lot of other schools and there were in fact rumors that we was going to transfer, but he instead decided to stay).

    If nobody every transferred away from Duke, that probably wouldn't be a good thing either.

    We basically have ten guys who would qualify for being "in the rotation" next year - Quinn, Tyler, Seth, Rasheed, Andre, Murphy, Josh, Ryan, Mason, and Marshall. Coach K typically plays a 7-man rotation, maybe 8. Someone was going to get pushed for time. Even without Gbinije, someone will still be playing fewer minutes than they "deserve."
    Great post. Transfers are what happen when you stockpile serious talent, and Duke had more high-major recruits than it had spots to play them. I don't want to use the word "Darwinian;" a guy like Pete Carroll would instead call it "competitive." Regardless, you have a situation where {g} may not have gotten big minutes at any point in his career, should Murphy prove as excellent as many think and should a guy like Jabari Parker end up wearing white at Cameron Indoor. If that was going to be the case, he probably made the right decision for himself. I wish him all success. Duke will be fine.

  2. #122
    I have some crow to eat here, sadly, and owe whomever it was from the Chronicle an apology.

    Best of luck to Gbinije.

  3. #123

    Cool We'll see

    Silent G has the kind of athleticism that Duke lacked this year, except for Rivers. It's hard to speculate on what kept him out of the lineup, but I predict that if he lands in the right situation in terms of PT and team cohesion, this will turn out to be a loss that Duke will regret.
    Unfortunate decisions will always be a risk in the evaluating and using young athletes. K is not immune to that, as he reminded us at the Banquet when relating a recent phone call with Grant Hill from the Suns locker room when the topic of recruiting Canadian athletes inadvertently appeared. That came when Steve Nash piped up with "Why did you want Newton and not me?"
    He dicho.
    Last edited by Zafort; 04-16-2012 at 03:21 PM. Reason: typo

  4. #124
    Quote Originally Posted by airowe View Post
    I have some crow to eat here, sadly, and owe whomever it was from the Chronicle an apology.

    Best of luck to Gbinije.
    I don't think you have to eat crow if the player tells you one thing and then does another. Not much you can do about that.

  5. #125
    Quote Originally Posted by Channing View Post
    this is also made harder based on AR's glowing comments that Gbinijie was really a high talent kind of player. Would have liked to see that prophecy come to fruition.
    Back in the 90s, I had some inside connections, and I was told Grant Hill made very similar glowing comments about Tony Moore in 1994. Tony Moore never got it together, though, so you really just never know.

  6. #126
    Dev11's Avatar
    Dev11 is offline Commissioner of Statistics, DBR Podcast
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    Quote Originally Posted by gumbomoop View Post
    I don't know whether all the chatter about Rodney Hood "hurt" Michael. Obviously Hood would redshirt next season, but the idea that Duke "needs" Hood is not, whatever it is, a statement of confidence in Michael. But speculation about Parker, Jefferson, and Hood is, right now, still speculation. Mason's return is a fact. And while Alex may split his time between wing/SF and the 4, he will certainly compete for some PT at wing/SF. And while Rasheed is no wing/SF, he is a combo/wing, so he, too, would compete with Michael for PT.

    Not to mention the great hope that Jabari Parker will arrive in 2013...
    This kind of thing gets mentioned a lot, and I wanted to ask if anybody could provide some insight here. In general, how often do the current players follow the recruiting activities of the coaching staff, either in contact with the coaches or reading about it in mags or online?

    There are a few different factors I think that would be at play. First off, basketball has very few players relative to sports like football, baseball, or lacrosse, so current players could envision any recruit within 4 inches of him either way being a competitor. In those bigger sports, you need tons of players just to field the team, so a QB doesn't see the recruitment of another QB as a huge insult, whereas a PG could. Additionally, players in the sports with bigger teams often have to earn their playing time a little more, since there are a lot more guys around and moving positions isn't as hard in those sports. If you have two good shortstops and can't get at-bats for both at SS, one of them becomes a second baseman, problem solved with minimal change to his game.

    I would imagine that interacting directly with the coaches on recruiting would be inappropriate for current players, beyond something like "Hey Coach, I played against this one dude last year at a smaller school, and even though we smoked his team, maybe you should take a look." Again, really different for basketball than football, since football needs to make a lot more inroads to find players, but not all that weird. However, if your program has a lot of smart or mature kids (Duke would generally come to mind relative to other programs), players might be able to handle those kinds of discussions with coaches, even if they might be inappropriate somewhere else. I doubt many coaches would enjoy having such discussions with their current players.

    Finally, do they read these crazy fan boards? I assume not, since it would drive them nuts. In basketball, I imagine that most of the information the players get is the reliable hearsay based on the fact that all the top guys know each other. Gbinije, for instance, has all the other Duke players, the Duke commits, and any of his old AAU buddies talking to all their buddies, so the network need not be very deep for him, or any other player at a big program, to be constantly informed about recruiting, whether they are looking for the news or not. I imagine they would spend more time on ESPN than DBR.

    In short, my guess to my original question would be that the current guys just talk to other players and gather information casually, rather than seeking it out. If anybody has insight, this could be an interesting topic.

  7. #127
    Quote Originally Posted by Zafort View Post
    Silent G has the kind of athleticism that Duke lacked this year, except for Rivers. It's hard to speculate on what kept him out of the lineup, but I predict that if he lands in the right situation in terms of PT and team cohesion, this will turn out to be a loss that Duke will regret.
    Unfortunate decisions will always be a risk in the evaluating and using young athletes. K is not immune to that, as he reminded us at the Banquet when relating a recent phone call with Grant Hill from the Suns locker room when the topic of recruiting Canadian athletes inadvertently appeared. That came when Steve Nash piped up with "Why did you want Newton and not me?"
    He dicho.
    Talent is great, and Michael has a lot of it. But it was apparent every time he stepped on the court last year that he wasn't ready to contribute. It's easy to speculate that if he'd gotten more minutes he would have gotten up to speed, but it has always been the case under K (with the notable exception of Hurley as a freshman) that minutes are earned in practice, not awarded based on potential.

    It's a shame that everybody wants instant gratification, and instant gratification takes too long.

  8. #128
    Quote Originally Posted by Big Pappa View Post
    ... a quote from Frank (Mike's Dad):

    “We were still on the fence and wanted to know more about his role going forward,” Frank Gbinije said in a telephone interview. “He gave us general plans from general perspective. He felt (Michael) would have more opportunities this season with potential change in the system. It was all promising.”
    Didn't want to let this throwaway line pass without a brief mention. Although I'm with those who think we had a very good season, it was clear in his last weekly TV show that K was pretty deflated about how the season ended, and how tired the team played in its last several games.

    Have to think Mason's return, Rasheed's arrival, expectations that Quinn will be healthy, and the promise shown by Alex - and Marshall - have set the staff to thinking anew about all sorts of things for 2012-'13. Add to all that 3 other talented seniors, plus 2 experienced juniors, and it does seem, however ironic where Michael is [no longer] concerned, "all promising."

  9. #129
    Join Date
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    Chicago, IL
    I'm not happy about this one bit, I hate when kids transfer, but it seems to happen more and more now days. I understand it especially when you are highly recruited like Mike.

    I think I share the same sentiments as some people when they say it is a good indicator of how good Alex Murphy is. I think he'll be a special player and when it is all said and done, Silent G will have a carreer similar to that of Jamal Boykin. I think we get Rodney Hood to for 2013-2014. I hate to see Mike leave, but we're going to be just fine.

  10. #130
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO

    The Iron Law of Playing Time

    Next year Duke will have ten players (11 when MG was in the equation) who can reasonably be expected to contribute. Yet there are only 200 minutes of playing time per game, and it is unrealistic to expect the PT to be divided equally among the players.

    Here are the playing times sorted by number of minutes in various years picked because Duke was fairly deep. Note that after the top nine players the playing times become miniscule. Only in 2009, however, were there as many as 11 recruited players.


    Code:
    Seq.	1999	2005	2009	2012
    1	 31.0 	 37.3 	 32.8 	 33.2 
    2	 29.3 	 34.5 	 32.2 	 30.2 
    3	 28.6 	 33.6 	 29.7 	 28.4 
    4	 28.6 	 21.8 	 19.8 	 23.6 
    5	 22.6 	 21.7 	 18.6 	 22.4 
    6	 17.7 	 19.2 	 15.6 	 21.1 
    7	 15.6 	 16.6 	 15.4 	 20.5 
    8	 14.7 	 6.5 	 15.2 	 11.4 
    9	 7.6 	 5.6 	 11.5 	 7.2 
    10	 2.1 	 2.6 	 4.5 	 3.3 
    11	 1.3 	 1.0 	 3.6 	 0.3
    One could resonably conclude that one would need to among the top nine players to get respectable minutes on the court. The handwriting, as they say, is on the wall (or the spreadsheet).

    sagegrouse

  11. #131
    Quote Originally Posted by gumbomoop View Post
    Didn't want to let this throwaway line pass without a brief mention. Although I'm with those who think we had a very good season, it was clear in his last weekly TV show that K was pretty deflated about how the season ended, and how tired the team played in its last several games.
    Overachieved during the regular season, underachieved during the postseason. I think it is as simple as that.

    Have to think Mason's return, Rasheed's arrival, expectations that Quinn will be healthy, and the promise shown by Alex - and Marshall - have set the staff to thinking anew about all sorts of things for 2012-'13. Add to all that 3 other talented seniors, plus 2 experienced juniors, and it does seem, however ironic where Michael is [no longer] concerned, "all promising."
    It seems to me that the shift in system refers mainly to being more defensively oriented and attempting to run more. If Cook does take the reigns at PG (and I expect him to do so) then I think we will push the ball much more. With Alex in the front-court with Mason and Ryan, we have three guys with serious length who can finish well in transition.
    Last edited by devil84; 04-16-2012 at 04:08 PM. Reason: Fixed quote tag

  12. #132

    recruiting?

    First, good luck to Silent G. He’ll be missed.

    Secondly, I fear that this may hurt recruiting. The next time that we are competing for a player ranked in the 20-35 range, the opposing coach (cough, coach cal, cough) could use Mike as an example of a kid that sat on the pine an entire year despite a glaring need for someone with his perceived talent. Further, the coach could say that MPIII and Alex used a redshirt year (we know this isn’t the entire story but high school kids don’t care).

  13. #133
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Quote Originally Posted by Des Esseintes View Post
    Great post. Transfers are what happen when you stockpile serious talent, and Duke had more high-major recruits than it had spots to play them. I don't want to use the word "Darwinian;" a guy like Pete Carroll would instead call it "competitive." Regardless, you have a situation where {g} may not have gotten big minutes at any point in his career, should Murphy prove as excellent as many think and should a guy like Jabari Parker end up wearing white at Cameron Indoor. If that was going to be the case, he probably made the right decision for himself. I wish him all success. Duke will be fine.
    Agreed. I still contend that if MG was a future starter for us that would get more than 20 minutes a game, we would have seen more of him this year. At Duke, generally, if you don't get burn as a freshman, unless the position is loaded in front of you (e.g. Ryan Kelly his freshman year) you are likely going to be nothing more than a role player. We needed a player with his skill set several times this year (especially when Kelly got hurt), and if he could have helped, I trust he would have played. I wasn't that excited about him being anything more than a "nice" player for us if he stuck around.

    The front page in the initial article tried to show examples of where players that didn't get a ton of run their freshman year ended up as pretty good players: "Nate James, Brian Zoubek, Greg Koubek, Alaa Abdelnaby, Dan Meaghar, Kevin Strickland, Matt Christensen, Marty Clark, Antonio Lang, Steve Wojciechowski, Sean Dockery and Gerald Henderson"

    I'll note that in the last 10 years, only Zoubek and Ryan Kelly fit this description, and Zoubek was waylaid by injuries. I'm sorry, but Dockery got more than 10 minutes a game and Gerald got almost 20 in their respective freshman years, and they played pretty much every game they were healthy. Wojo had to play WAY more than I would have wanted as a freshman. He played a ton. Show me someone with significant DNPs as a freshman, other than Ryan (who got into most games, way more than 19) that has recently developed at Duke. That player doesn't exist, and, as far as I'm concerned, was telling about what Gbinije's ceiling really was --- hint: not high.

    That's not an indictment on Duke as much as it is that players want to play and they know better than us where they fit on our depth chart - and I imagine our coaches are honest with them about it. I would love, love, love for us to have a player with Nate James career development arc. We need more of that. But my impression is that if a guy can't get in his freshman year, especially in the backcourt/wings, he (and we) better be prepared for that person to be a role player at best or transfer out.

  14. #134
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by nmduke2001 View Post
    First, good luck to Silent G. He’ll be missed.

    Secondly, I fear that this may hurt recruiting. The next time that we are competing for a player ranked in the 20-35 range, the opposing coach (cough, coach cal, cough) could use Mike as an example of a kid that sat on the pine an entire year despite a glaring need for someone with his perceived talent. Further, the coach could say that MPIII and Alex used a redshirt year (we know this isn’t the entire story but high school kids don’t care).
    I never have a grudge when someone treansfers. If that person feels that he is better off somewhere else God bless him. As far as him being missed, while I do not want anything bad to happen to him, I will not miss him . He did virtually nothing this year and probably would not have been a factor next year either.

    The only thing that I am a little uncertain about him is that after Rivers departed, he did say very nice things about him and kinda intimated that he thought he would be a star. Maybe they were just very good friends.

  15. #135
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Dev11 View Post
    Finally, do they read these crazy fan boards? I assume not, since it would drive them nuts. In basketball, I imagine that most of the information the players get is the reliable hearsay based on the fact that all the top guys know each other. Gbinije, for instance, has all the other Duke players, the Duke commits, and any of his old AAU buddies talking to all their buddies, so the network need not be very deep for him, or any other player at a big program, to be constantly informed about recruiting, whether they are looking for the news or not. I imagine they would spend more time on ESPN than DBR.

    In short, my guess to my original question would be that the current guys just talk to other players and gather information casually, rather than seeking it out. If anybody has insight, this could be an interesting topic.
    Do players read these boards? I don't know how often, but they've been known to do so. Do their friends and family? Yes.

  16. #136
    Quote Originally Posted by devil84 View Post
    Do players read these boards? I don't know how often, but they've been known to do so. Do their friends and family? Yes.
    Thanks for the fix on the quotes. Two summers ago I interviewed a player that is currently on the roster and asked him the same question off the record. His response was something to the affect of "Most guys check every so often. Some guys laugh at it and some guys hang on every word."

  17. #137
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Halifax, Nova Scotia

    Popular player

    I am, like most, sad to see Gbinijie go. He is a solid student, good athlete, seemed like he contributed in a lot of different ways in high school and AAU ball, and seemed like a quiet, good kid. I wish him the best and wonder how Duke is going to replace the greatest foul shooter in the program's history.

  18. #138
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    Next year Duke will have ten players (11 when MG was in the equation) who can reasonably be expected to contribute. Yet there are only 200 minutes of playing time per game, and it is unrealistic to expect the PT to be divided equally among the players.

    Here are the playing times sorted by number of minutes in various years picked because Duke was fairly deep. Note that after the top nine players the playing times become miniscule. Only in 2009, however, were there as many as 11 recruited players.


    Code:
    Seq.	1999	2005	2009	2012
    1	 31.0 	 37.3 	 32.8 	 33.2 
    2	 29.3 	 34.5 	 32.2 	 30.2 
    3	 28.6 	 33.6 	 29.7 	 28.4 
    4	 28.6 	 21.8 	 19.8 	 23.6 
    5	 22.6 	 21.7 	 18.6 	 22.4 
    6	 17.7 	 19.2 	 15.6 	 21.1 
    7	 15.6 	 16.6 	 15.4 	 20.5 
    8	 14.7 	 6.5 	 15.2 	 11.4 
    9	 7.6 	 5.6 	 11.5 	 7.2 
    10	 2.1 	 2.6 	 4.5 	 3.3 
    11	 1.3 	 1.0 	 3.6 	 0.3
    One could resonably conclude that one would need to among the top nine players to get respectable minutes on the court. The handwriting, as they say, is on the wall (or the spreadsheet).

    sagegrouse
    I know technically they play different positions (although Coach K always says we play the 5 best without really defined positions), but if Mike G was not good enough to get minutes over Hairston, this is not a major loss. Hairston may hustle and give 110%, but he also airballs jumpers (and even a dunk!) with shocking regularity, and just isn't a very good defender (be it because of his size, footwork, or anything else).
    My Quick Smells Like French Toast.

  19. #139
    Quote Originally Posted by nmduke2001 View Post
    First, good luck to Silent G. He’ll be missed.

    Secondly, I fear that this may hurt recruiting. The next time that we are competing for a player ranked in the 20-35 range, the opposing coach (cough, coach cal, cough) could use Mike as an example of a kid that sat on the pine an entire year despite a glaring need for someone with his perceived talent. Further, the coach could say that MPIII and Alex used a redshirt year (we know this isn’t the entire story but high school kids don’t care).
    Well sure- I am sure they use everything to their advantage. But you are suggesting that he was extremely talented and K sat him simply because he was not a top player? I am not quite sure why K would sit a player that was much better than everyone around him unless, of course, he was not quite ready.

  20. #140
    Quote Originally Posted by Channing View Post
    I know technically they play different positions (although Coach K always says we play the 5 best without really defined positions), but if Mike G was not good enough to get minutes over Hairston, this is not a major loss. Hairston may hustle and give 110%, but he also airballs jumpers (and even a dunk!) with shocking regularity, and just isn't a very good defender (be it because of his size, footwork, or anything else).
    Reminds me of the trashing of Zoubek for all his weaknesses. Then in his senior year- Zoubek made all the difference. These kids are not finished products- that can and do get better. No one here ever thought that sophomore Nolan Smith would have matured into the best player in the league when he became a senior. Kids get better.

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