Originally Posted by
mr. synellinden
Stats don't always move in perfect correlation to minutes. Singler's rebounding per game went down in his junior year (2010) despite his minutes going up from his sophomore year. Some of that can be attributed, perhaps, to a slower pace of play by Duke; or due to Zoubek's impact on the overall rebounding distribution. On the other hand - Singler's rebounding was about the same in 2011 (about the same minutes per game) when Zoubek was gone and our tempo picked up (from 68 -72 possessions per game), so who knows? For what it's worth, we were one of the slowest tempo teams last season at 67 possessions per game (about the bottom 25 or 30 percent - remember all that talk about running and pressing?) and that may very well go up this year. With all that being said, there is probably a better chance that Amile's rebounding rate goes up than down, even though I think the presence of Okafor in terms of rebounding by Jefferson will be greater than Jabari was. So maybe he'll get 7-8 rebounds a game instead of in the 6s.
I think 9 is a big stretch - and certainly not a threshold that if he's below it should be considered a disappointment. Jabari didn't get to 9 rebounds a game last year. In fact, do you know how many players in the K era have averaged 9 or more rebounds a game for a season? 5: Mason (3 times '11, '12, 13); Shelden ('04, '05, '06); Brand ('99); Parks ('95); and Laettner ('90). Interestingly, all of those guys were centers for Duke. If you lower the threshold to 8 rebounds, in addition to those mentioned and Jabari who averaged 8.7, the only others are Boozer ('02) and Greg Newton ('96) - also centers. McRoberts and Zoubek came close in '07 and '10, respectively - again, centers. So if Jefferson were to average 8 or more rebounds per game, besides Jabari last year, he'd be the only non-center to do it. Is somewhere between 7 and 8 possible - yes. Likely - maybe. But to do more than that would be almost unprecedented - as a side note it shows what a great rebounder Jabari was last season - although I guess he did play a lot of minutes at center.
Regarding Grayson, I know all the thinking on a 7-8 man rotation and the evidence of K's patterns. However, K has made comments about the depth of the team and how the talent really extends to all of the scholarship players. I expect Grayson to get a chance to play this year, even as the 9th man in the rotation. It might only be 7-8 minutes a game, and he might not see a lot of action in close conference games in the second half when K tends so shorten the rotation to 6-7 players. But what if he can shoot 75-80% from the line? Might we then see him get some action in late game situations? Or what if he turns out to be one of our best 3 point shooters and we need more court spacing? I think he is very likely to be #9 in the rotation, but I also think he might be good enough to be the rare #9 that gets some steady court time.