Welcome to Duke, Justise Winslow!

[jimsumner]

Yeah, I do have a much more rigorous analysis ready to post, but I'm waiting for the final RSCI to come out. My theory explains both why Dunleavy and Scheyer played as much as they did and why Grayson Allen won't.

Dunleavy played a lot in large part because Duke had lost three of its top four perimeter players from the year before. Scheyer joined a team that had lost two of its top three perimeter players, including the national POY. PT was available.

Allen is joining a program that returns two upper-class guards, with extensive starting experience, along with a promising rising sophomore. PT harder to come by.

[Kedsy]

Dunleavy played a lot in large part because Duke had lost three of its top four perimeter players from the year before. Scheyer joined a team that had lost two of its top three perimeter players, including the national POY. PT was available.

Allen is joining a program that returns two upper-class guards, with extensive starting experience, along with a promising rising sophomore. PT harder to come by.

I totally agree. The future post I'm being all coy about puts numbers behind it, that's all.

[Li_Duke]

I plotted year end rankings versus average minutes played (averaged over the games for which they were healthy) for all top 40 ranked freshmen (excludes Dawkins) from 98-99 (earliest I can find composite rankings for) to present. There are a few outliers (the ones that jump out are Jon Scheyer and Ryan Kelly), but for the most part, a linear fit looks very reasonable.

Model 1: Predicts minutes per game using composite rankings. We don't have a final RSCI ranking, but using ESPN rankings (1 Okafor, 4 Jones, 15 Winslow, and 21 Allen), we'd expect
Okafor: 26-35 minutes
Jones: 24-33 mintes
Winslow: 17-23 minutes
Allen: 12-18 minutes

Model 2: I also added in approximate positions (big men, wings/forwards, pg). Big men tend to play the fewest minutes, with wings/forwards playing about 5 minutes more on average, and PGs playing 9 minutes more on average. There's definitely interactions going on, but we just don't have enough data to explore that.
Okafor: 20-30 minutes
Jones: 26-36 minutes
Winslow: 17-24 minutes
Allen: 15-24 minutes

My prediction:
Obviously Okafor is going to start and get all the minutes he can handle. But I think the second model is right in that all the minutes he can handle (due to foul trouble/exhaustion) = approximately 30 minutes per game.
Jones has competition in Cook, but stud PGs also tend to get all the minutes they can handle even if there is another stud PG on the roster (see Duhon). I'm predicting more minutes for Jones than Okafor.
I think the 2 models are spot on in regards to Winslow. He's going to get 6th man/borderline starter minutes.
There is no way Allen is going to get 12 minutes per game this year. He just doesn't look physically ready. I think we're going to see another outlier like Ryan Kelly. Hopefully the rest of his career arc will follow Ryan's.

Am looking forward to seeing your numbers, Kedsy. I'm sure my analysis is going to look quite ridiculous in comparison.