Andre Dawkins lights it up

[dcar1985]

http://www.draftexpress.com/article/...t-Day-Two-4475

Andre Dawkins is an interesting character in this setting, a former five star high school recruit who played only 14 minutes per game as a senior after redshirting his junior year due to tragic circumstances.

Dawkins played one of the most narrowly confined roles of any player at this tournament in college, as an astounding 78% of his offense came off spot-up jumpers, screens, or hand-offs—which he absolutely excelled at, making 42% of his 3-pointers on the season. Dawkins had a chance to show off a more expansive skill-set in this setting than we were able to see at Duke, something he found mostly mixed results with last night. 11 of his 17 attempts came from beyond the arc, with the rest coming mostly in the form of one dribble pull-ups from just inside the arc. He did make some nice passes off the dribble, showing a solid basketball IQ, but for the most part struggled to separate himself from the group despite scoring 20 points.

Looking somewhat out of shape, and not showing the highest intensity level, Dawkins didn't come out with the type of urgency you'd expect considering his situation. His defense was porous, and he failed to run back on a few occasions, showing some concerning body language at times. When he tried to put the ball on the floor he had a difficult time getting past his man, throwing up some awkward floaters in the lane and not getting to the foul line even once.

While measuring out well (6-5 with a 6-8 ½ wingspan) for a shooting guard, Dawkins will need to show he can be more than just a spot-up jump-shooter to make it in the NBA, at least in terms of putting forth better effort defensively. He has two more games to improve his standing here, and would be smart to use them wisely.

That was an observation on Dre from Jonathan Givony from Draft Express as he's covering the Portsmouth Invitational.

[tele]

I agree that he'll get a chance at this outcome. Every NBA team needs dead-eye 3 point shooters, now more then ever. He'll mostly have to prove that he can guard.

I also agree and I think he has the size and athleticism to guard nba 2's too, especially in the regular season. I always enjoyed watching Andre play at Duke and hope to continue to watch him play in the pros. Opposing coaches all knew what player they couldn't leave open when Andre was in the game, so someone should give him an opportunity to play at the next level.

[superdave]

I'm afraid this season won't be measured by offensive deficiencies, but rather defensive. And Andre really didn't help our defensive issues.

On offense, Andre was reliable against middling competition, but much more unpredictable when the other team's defense ramped up.

He faced his demons and appeared to have fun playing again. That's enough for me.

-jk

I wholeheartedly agree with your final point. Once Andre got going after a slow start to the season, I was relieved then ecstatic. Great kid, great to see him back.

But on the defensive deficiencies, I say own it. Dont spend all season chasing the dragon. Eventually you have to maximize what you are really good at which is scoring. This Duke team should have gotten up and down, put up a ton of points, and maybe packed in the defense a little more to avoid giving up the easy buckets. Very few teams could have scored with this roster. Coach K should have dared them to try.

[FerryFor50]

I wholeheartedly agree with your final point. Once Andre got going after a slow start to the season, I was relieved then ecstatic. Great kid, great to see him back.

But on the defensive deficiencies, I say own it. Dont spend all season chasing the dragon. Eventually you have to maximize what you are really good at which is scoring. This Duke team should have gotten up and down, put up a ton of points, and maybe packed in the defense a little more to avoid giving up the easy buckets. Very few teams could have scored with this roster. Coach K should have dared them to try.

Totally agree. At some point you just have to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and play to them.

[GGLC]

Totally agree. At some point you just have to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and play to them.

I'm very surprised that we didn't run more this season. Seems like we had perfect personnel for it. I would have loved to see Andre hit some trailing threes on the break like Battier, Redick, and Dunleavy used to do so well.

[FerryFor50]

http://www.draftexpress.com/article/...t-Day-Two-4475



That was an observation on Dre from Jonathan Givony from Draft Express as he's covering the Portsmouth Invitational.

Sounds a lot like his time at Duke. Tons of potential, but never really worked hard to get open (as I mentioned before, compare to Brady Heslip) and was a sieve on defense.

[Class of '94]

I wholeheartedly agree with your final point. Once Andre got going after a slow start to the season, I was relieved then ecstatic. Great kid, great to see him back.

But on the defensive deficiencies, I say own it. Dont spend all season chasing the dragon. Eventually you have to maximize what you are really good at which is scoring. This Duke team should have gotten up and down, put up a ton of points, and maybe packed in the defense a little more to avoid giving up the easy buckets. Very few teams could have scored with this roster. Coach K should have dared them to try.

But to be fair, I think K wanted to push the ball more (and even said I believe it in a presser towards the end of the season); but the players weren't able to do it and the team had to adjust expectations. Looking at how Quinn would regularly have at least 1-2 unforced errors in a game when he was a starter and Tyler wasn't necessarily a push it up the floor guard, I'm not so sure that this team would have been successful long term playing a run and gun style. I think the team's problems were mostly on the defensive side of the ball in that we couldn't consistently get timely stops when we needed to. I also wonder if packing it in would've worked considering we were so small as a team. Philosophically, I agreed with K in that I thought the best way to defend was to pressure the opposing team's guards to make it tough to throw the ball into the post (like Duke tried to do). It worked well for UConn imo; and we had players like Sheed, M Jones and Tyler that could apply pressure. Unfortunately, even that, was not completely what K had envisioned imo. K, early in the season, pulled the defense back and we still got burned on defense; thus, with this particular team, i'm not so sure what type of defense would worked best for this team; and again, I'm not so sure that this team had the quality depth to play a run and gun style of offense. JMO.

[rsvman]

I was at the game today. Dawkins was OK, but not great. He missed a fair number of 3's in the first half. At halftime he was knocking them down, but when the game started up, he promptly missed a couple more.

He made a couple of nice drives that ended with scores. He made a couple of bone-headed plays, including one time when he ended up essentially dribbling the ball off his foot and out of bounds despite little to no defensive pressure.

On the defensive end he sometimes played well, denying passes to his man or fighting through screens; at other times he was beat pretty easily off a quick first step.

His effort waxed and waned. Overall I'd say he didn't appear to be fully engaged.

After the game he was kind enough to sign a shirt for my son and to allow my son to get a picture taken with him. We had a really good time at the game and we cheered loudly for him.

[g-money]

His effort waxed and waned. Overall I'd say he didn't appear to be fully engaged.

After the game he was kind enough to sign a shirt for my son and to allow my son to get a picture taken with him. We had a really good time at the game and we cheered loudly for him.

In the 0.1% chance that Andre is reading this, I say: Come on Andre, it is time to get your a-- in gear!!!

We're all pulling for you here in Duke Nation.

[MCFinARL]

I was at the game today. Dawkins was OK, but not great. He missed a fair number of 3's in the first half. At halftime he was knocking them down, but when the game started up, he promptly missed a couple more.

He made a couple of nice drives that ended with scores. He made a couple of bone-headed plays, including one time when he ended up essentially dribbling the ball off his foot and out of bounds despite little to no defensive pressure.

On the defensive end he sometimes played well, denying passes to his man or fighting through screens; at other times he was beat pretty easily off a quick first step.

His effort waxed and waned. Overall I'd say he didn't appear to be fully engaged.

After the game he was kind enough to sign a shirt for my son and to allow my son to get a picture taken with him. We had a really good time at the game and we cheered loudly for him.

This is a somewhat different view than I got just looking at the stat line--where Andre once again led both teams in scoring with 21 points on 8-19 shooting (5-13 from 3, which is admittedly not lights out but still a respectable 38%) and had 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 turnover (presumably the foot dribble). Admittedly some other players were more efficient, as Andre took the most shots of any player in this game as well.

It would be great if Andre could be completely focused and error-free in this tournament--it's obviously an important chance for him. But it may not be realistic to expect that he can transform his game to peak performance essentially overnight, playing with a team that has just been formed for these three days, with the pressure of knowing who is watching. The scouts will see what they see and decide what they decide. I feel confident Andre will play professional basketball somewhere. I hope it will be in the NBA, but that is far from certain.

It's hard to imagine the road Andre has walked over the last few years and the effects it may have had on his basketball game. What is nice to see, though, is that he gives every sign of being a genuinely gracious and thoughtful young man, as evidenced by your shirt experience.

Another recent example--Andre received a pretty rude tweet from someone whose kids had gone to the most recent barnstorming game hoping to see him ("tks for disappointing her"), but he was in Portsmouth and missed that game. Andre replied:

I'm actually up in Portsmouth trying to start my professional career at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament. I apologize that I couldn't make it.

Happily, the original tweeter thanked him for apologizing. But not every 22-year-old would respond with that patience and thoughtfulness.

Here is hoping Andre has a terrific all around game this afternoon. But here is hoping even more that, no matter what develops in his basketball career, he maintains his positive attitude and recognizes his own considerable worth as a person,.

[rsvman]

My son and I were late and missed the first 11 or 12 minutes of he first half. He made some threes in the waning minutes of the game, but missed several in a row when the game was still tight. They looked just like the shots he missed against Mercer (halfway down and back out again). I suppose those painful memories made it seem like his shooting was worse than it actually was. He and Okaro White were pretty clearly the most important players on the team.

On D there were times when he worked really hard and was impressive. He wasn't really slacking at any time; lets just say that it seemed like sometimes he was conserving energy. At the end of the first half, with maybe 2 or 3 seconds to play, he didn't seem like he really was aware of time and situation, which I thought was a little odd. That's probably why it seemed to me that he was t as engaged as he could have been (even though the majority of the time he played hard).

[MCFinARL]

Dawkins did not start in the third game today, but still scored the most of anyone in his game, with 23 points in 28 minutes on 8-17 shooting, 5-8 from 3. Elsewhere in his stat line he had 3 rebounds, 1 foul, 1 assist, 1 block, 1 steal, no turnovers. Non of the non-scoring numbers are especially noteworthy but at least they seem to show some game awareness and hustle all over the court. I did not see this game so can't say how he actually looked playing.

[rsvman]

Dawkins did not start in the third game today, but still scored the most of anyone in his game, with 23 points in 28 minutes on 8-17 shooting, 5-8 from 3. Elsewhere in his stat line he had 3 rebounds, 1 foul, 1 assist, 1 block, 1 steal, no turnovers. Non of the non-scoring numbers are especially noteworthy but at least they seem to show some game awareness and hustle all over the court. I did not see this game so can't say how he actually looked playing.

Agreed. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to today's game, but it sounds like he played well. He was the leading scorer on his team again today. Sherman, from Notre Dame, also apparently had a great game, and has had at least two really good games in this tournament.

[MCFinARL]

Dawkins finished the Portsmouth Invitational with 64 points, 14-32 on 3-pointers, and was one of twelve players named to the all-tournament team.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I wholeheartedly agree with your final point. Once Andre got going after a slow start to the season, I was relieved then ecstatic. Great kid, great to see him back.

But on the defensive deficiencies, I say own it. Dont spend all season chasing the dragon. Eventually you have to maximize what you are really good at which is scoring. This Duke team should have gotten up and down, put up a ton of points, and maybe packed in the defense a little more to avoid giving up the easy buckets. Very few teams could have scored with this roster. Coach K should have dared them to try.

I have generally refrained for critiquing the coaching/defense choices over the season and in the off-season, but I totally agree. Our team might not have been optimized for a run-and-gun offense, but it certainly had the personnel to put some points on the board. Sort of the square peg, round hole idea.

I also enjoyed the idea of some pressure defense. We employed it a few times with decent success (no, I don't recall which game in particular). Partly, it's just more fun to watch a team with some good athletes get up and down the floor and score in bunches. Moreso than watching players get caught out of position on defense.

[MCFinARL]

I have generally refrained for critiquing the coaching/defense choices over the season and in the off-season, but I totally agree. Our team might not have been optimized for a run-and-gun offense, but it certainly had the personnel to put some points on the board. Sort of the square peg, round hole idea.

I also enjoyed the idea of some pressure defense. We employed it a few times with decent success (no, I don't recall which game in particular). Partly, it's just more fun to watch a team with some good athletes get up and down the floor and score in bunches. Moreso than watching players get caught out of position on defense.

This is so true--at the beginning of this season I thought to myself that I didn't know how well the team would end up doing, but I was sure they would be fun to watch, because they would be running and there would be good athletes. That happened some, especially early on, but not nearly as much as I expected or hoped. And as we know all too well, sometimes the team turned out to be more excruciating than fun to watch.

[Troublemaker]

This is so true--at the beginning of this season I thought to myself that I didn't know how well the team would end up doing, but I was sure they would be fun to watch, because they would be running and there would be good athletes. That happened some, especially early on, but not nearly as much as I expected or hoped. And as we know all too well, sometimes the team turned out to be more excruciating than fun to watch.

I'd have to scratch my head if Duke doesn't have an effective transition team next season. This season, we probably didn't have the point guard play. It was either Jabari had to take it coast to coast (which he wasn't that great at) or we would have to slow it down.

Tyus seems to be a natural on the break, though. (There are so many parts to his game to like!) I'm looking forward to a lot of rebound --> quick outlet to Tyus --> throwahead pass to a streaking wing sequences next year. Tyus can really play the longball game, and if needed, he can push down the court himself.

[dcar1985]

I'd have to scratch my head if Duke doesn't have an effective transition team next season. This season, we probably didn't have the point guard play. It was either Jabari had to take it coast to coast (which he wasn't that great at) or we would have to slow it down.

Tyus seems to be a natural on the break, though. (There are so many parts to his game to like!) I'm looking forward to a lot of rebound --> quick outlet to Tyus --> throwahead pass to a streaking wing sequences next year. Tyus can really play the longball game, and if needed, he can push down the court himself.

Just curious how many other 6'9 pf/c did you see going coast to coast with the ball to finish this season to say Jabari wasn't that great at it?

[CDu]

Just curious how many other 6'9 pf/c did you see going coast to coast with the ball to finish this season to say Jabari wasn't that great at it?

I don't want to put words in Troublemaker's mouth, but I suspect he (or she, don't want to be presumptuous) meant that, as an offensive strategy, Parker going end to end wasn't a great strategy.

For a PF, Parker was certainly a very good ballhandler. But in terms of going with an up-tempo style, I don't think Parker going end-to-end is what we want to base things on.

Now, as a secondary option whenever the PG can't get the ball? Sure, it's good once in a while.

[Troublemaker]

Jabari going coast to coast was unique, not necessarily effective. Two different things. Turnovers and missed layups occurred just as often as points on the board when he tried it. It definitely was pretty exciting on the occasions when he successfully converted, though. There was one against Kansas that got a lot of airplay.

ETA: CDu types fast!