2017-18 Minutes Discussion (Post-Duval)

[brlftz]

...O'Connell is a little bigger and longer...

wait, what? per 247 O'Connell is 6'5" 170lb, and Tucker is 6'7" 200lb

[DukieInBrasil]

Assuming no Bamba (although I would love to be wrong and have to revise this to incorporate him):

	Starters		Rotation		in blowouts
32	Fr Duval				Fr Goldwire
34	Sr Allen	22	Fr Tucker		Fr O'Connell
32	Fr Trent				rSo Robinson
30	Fr Carter	20	* So JMD / So White		So JMD / So White
24	So Bolden	6	Jr Vrankovic

* predicting 1 of DeLaurier or White to get backup PF minutes, but don't know which. (Many think it's Javin easily, but I think Jack will put up a fight)

So, a 7.5 man rotation. JTuck's going to have to be good immediately because he's going to be playing about half the game as the primary perimeter sub. When Trevon rests, Grayson will be the PG. When Marques rests, Wendell will mostly be the C, but I'm also going out on a limb and giving Vrank some 7.5th-man minutes.

I would slot Jack into the rotation or blowout SF slot rather than PF. He could certainly be a stretch 4, but since we have 4 PF/C types already, i would think that Jack's highest utility would be at SF. Tucker seems to be just as much of a SF option as a SG option.
I don't really disagree with your prediction, i just think that a couple of guys offer more flexibility than your schema shows.

[cato]

I also think it is very possible Coach K may actually adhere to what he said in his post-season comments about needing to give more time to more players. I hope he will give opportunities to more than just 6 or 7 players to see who is playing well on a game-by-game basis. I may be crazy for saying this, but I truly hope we see 9 or 10 Blue Devils get some kind of playing time every game.

But he didn't say that. He said his team needs to be deeper.

Is Coach K going to suddenly change his philosophy about earning playing time in practice and playing your best players as much as possible? Perhaps. But I doubt it.

My take is that Coach K is focused on how he can field a team where more players demand playing time based on the performance, not that he is going to give players more game time in hopes of them developing to the point where they deserve it.

[jimsumner]

I'd be stunned if Vrankovic plays more minutes than DeLaurier.

Six-man rotations? Georgia Tech in 1990. Made the FF and came a lot closer to beating UNLV than did Duke, which admittedly is a low bar.

It helped that three of those six players, Dennis Scott, Kenny Anderson and Brian Oliver, were among the best players in the country. Karl Brown, Johnny McNeil and Malcolm Mackey got most of the other minutes in competitive games, with some other guys getting mop-up minutes. Those six guys played 194 minutes against Vegas, with Daryl Barnes getting the other six.

Cremins learned from Frank McGuire, who was (in)famous for sticking with his starters. McGuire's philosophy was that he was starting his five best players so why should he sit one for someone not as good as one of the starters?

My freshman year (1969) Duke beat South Carolina in an ACC Tournament game in which neither team used a single sub.

Of course, there was no shot clock in 1969. But there was in 1990, when Cremins rode a six-player rotation pretty deep into the tournament.

[bob blue devil]

At Duke? Yeah. Many of our teams have had 6-man rotations. The 2010 championship team played essentially a 6-man rotation, with the entire bench playing just 17 minutes combined in the title game.

not sure about the 2010 example - scheyer, smith, singler, thomas, and zoubek, with dawkins and plumlee(s) off the bench. the sub pattern varied a fair amount depending on the game, but if you say 6, then 6 is plumlee and we all know dawkins made a few shots that year that weren't in mop-up time... the title game was the least bench minutes we played the whole season - a bit of a special case, right?

[dukebluesincebirth]

Could you guys help me out with Trent Jr.? I don't really know what to expect from him. I've heard:

#1 shooting guard in the country
not a great 3 point shooter
not that fast or athletic
will definitely start
plays the 2 and the 3
One and done player

I've watched some videos of him and seen a shot that goes in, but those are highlight videos from high school. What kind of competition did he play against for the most part? What are his elite skills? What made him the best player in the country at his position?

Just trying to get an idea of his game, thanks!

[bob blue devil]

not sure about the 2010 example - scheyer, smith, singler, thomas, and zoubek, with dawkins and plumlee(s) off the bench. the sub pattern varied a fair amount depending on the game, but if you say 6, then 6 is plumlee and we all know dawkins made a few shots that year that weren't in mop-up time... the title game was the least bench minutes we played the whole season - a bit of a special case, right?

just to add, plumlees and dawkins combined for about 40mpg that season - i could see the argument that we were going 7 deep b/c often one of the 3 was buried on the bench, but i don't think it's fair to say we were going 6 deep.

[kAzE]

Could you guys help me out with Trent Jr.? I don't really know what to expect from him. I've heard:

#1 shooting guard in the country
not a great 3 point shooter
not that fast or athletic
will definitely start
plays the 2 and the 3
One and done player

I've watched some videos of him and seen a shot that goes in, but those are highlight videos from high school. What kind of competition did he play against for the most part? What are his elite skills? What made him the best player in the country at his position?

Just trying to get an idea of his game, thanks!

He's not an awful shooter (34% for his HS career), just not an elite one. I would still expect him to take open shots.

He's probably overrated on ESPN (#7). For reference, he's #19 on scout.com (he was previously #17, so he's been falling in their rankings), which would make him the #3 SG behind Hamidou Diallo and Lonnie Walker.

He's very strong and very tough. He's reputedly a good defender. I really hope he can defend. We need good perimeter defenders badly. I actually expect him to be kind of a beast in the paint. Hopefully he has a little bit of a back to the basket game to take advantage of smaller guards. I think he will be a nice scorer (12-15 PPG), but he will be more efficient in the paint than from 3.

Lastly, I don't see him as a OAD. He's not the type of quick or explosive athlete that screams OAD. He may be at Duke for 2-3 years.

That's just my impression, and I fully admit I could be wrong.

[Troublemaker]

I posted an explanation in the other rotation thread (did we really need 2 threads?) about why I don't think Jordan Tucker will play guard minutes.

Tucker seems to be just as much of a SF option as a SG option.

Yeah, I definitely agree that Tucker is a SF, and all the minutes I'm projecting for Tucker would be at SF. I just visually centered him with the perimeter players to denote that he's the sub for all of them. But when he subs for Duval, then Allen and Trent would shift to the 1 and 2, respectively, with Tucker coming in as the 3.

[budwom]

I could back up the following with numbers, grids, and charts, but people would just tell me that recruiting rankings aren't everything, so I'll just say it:

(all of the following is based on not having Bamba (though I'm still hoping), and no major injuries (knocking on some hard, dense substance))

The third big will be Javin, not Antonio. Antonio will play nowhere near 15-20 minutes. Without a fair amount of garbage time, he may not even reach Troublemaker's 6 mpg.

The fourth perimeter player will be a competition among Jordan T, Jack, and Alex. The two guys who lose that competition will barely play in competitive games. My vague guess is Jordan T wins that competition, but there's little rational basis for prediction and it won't be decided until after the exhibition games, so there's no real point in guessing now. Whoever it is, though, they won't top 15 mpg, probably closer to 12 mpg.

Also, note that if Jordan T or Alex make the rotation, they would be the very first Duke freshman ranked outside the top 35 to do so in the RSCI era. If Jack makes the rotation, he'll be the first Duke guy outside the top 150 to do so in the same timeframe (not counting Seth Curry, but he was a transfer so that's different). So, no matter who wins the fourth perimeter player competition, it will be a first at Duke in at least the past 20 years.

As others have alluded, I'll be very surprised if Trevon and Grayson don't play 35+ mpg (and if Gary isn't close to that) and if all five starters don't play 30+ mpg (though obviously foul trouble for Wendell and Marques could have a say in that last one).

That's the way I see it, too. Starters plus DeLaurier plus a wildcard wing TBD. As for the notion of an eighth man...well, we'll see.

[House P]

Six-man rotations? Georgia Tech in 1990. Made the FF and came a lot closer to beating UNLV than did Duke, which admittedly is a low bar.

It helped that three of those six players, Dennis Scott, Kenny Anderson and Brian Oliver, were among the best players in the country. Karl Brown, Johnny McNeil and Malcolm Mackey got most of the other minutes in competitive games, with some other guys getting mop-up minutes. Those six guys played 194 minutes against Vegas, with Daryl Barnes getting the other six.

Thanks for the perspective/history lesson. How about this boxscore from Georgia Tech's overtime win in the Sweet 16 that year?

Player	Minutes
Kenny Anderson	45
Dennis Scott	45
Brian Oliver	43
Johnny McNeil	37
Karl Brown	29
Malcolm Mackey	25
Darryl Barnes	1

Sadly, not even a token appearance by James "Oh no, not Munlyn!", the 6-11 center who appeared in 29 games that season and shot .323 from the field and .435 from the FT line.

[CDu]

just to add, plumlees and dawkins combined for about 40mpg that season - i could see the argument that we were going 7 deep b/c often one of the 3 was buried on the bench, but i don't think it's fair to say we were going 6 deep.

The Plumlees made up most of those 40 mpg. And that was because we couldn't settle on the frontcourt. Neither the Plumlees nor Zoubek could lock down the C spot. By the time Zoubek got locked in, we basically ran a 6.5 man roation.

Same thing in 2001. We played essentially a 6.5-man rotation then too.

Both of those teams played less deep than this team will with DeLaurier, one of Tucker/O'Connell/White, and Vrankovic making a 7.5-man rotation.

[Matches]

not sure about the 2010 example - scheyer, smith, singler, thomas, and zoubek, with dawkins and plumlee(s) off the bench. the sub pattern varied a fair amount depending on the game, but if you say 6, then 6 is plumlee and we all know dawkins made a few shots that year that weren't in mop-up time... the title game was the least bench minutes we played the whole season - a bit of a special case, right?

Dawkins played spot minutes a lot of the time and drew DNPs every so often. MP1 and MP2 got enough minutes that it's fair to call them "rotation players" on that team, although as noted MP2 played only a spot role in the title game.

I'd argue we had a 6-man rotation in 2015-16 after Amile got hurt - they kept trying to get minutes from Jeter but he never really became a guy who would play for more than a few minutes at a time.

The 1999-2000 team comes to mind as well, once the rotation solidified. Early in the year K played more guys but after Boozer got healthy and established himself, the starting 5 plus Dunleavy played most of the minutes. (Kind of similar to 2016 - they kept trying to get minutes from Christensen, Horvath and Sanders but without much success.)

A 6-man rotation is feasible but really tough these days because there are so many fouls being called. You also need a lot of positional versatility. Bobby Cremins used to play 6 guys at GT but the 6th guy was almost always someone who could play 3-4 positions.

[flyingdutchdevil]

Could you guys help me out with Trent Jr.? I don't really know what to expect from him. I've heard:

#1 shooting guard in the country
not a great 3 point shooter
not that fast or athletic
will definitely start
plays the 2 and the 3
One and done player

I've watched some videos of him and seen a shot that goes in, but those are highlight videos from high school. What kind of competition did he play against for the most part? What are his elite skills? What made him the best player in the country at his position?

Just trying to get an idea of his game, thanks!

I've bolded what are near-certainties. Everything else is debatable. Let me try to answer a few of the questions:

Not a great 3 point shooter: He is not Luke Kennard. But I disagree with many who think he isn't a 3pt threat. He is best shooting off the dribble and he is a true "triple threat". Put this into perspective. At Apple Valley, Trent shot 40.4% from 3pt range as a junior. Tyus Jones shot 57% his senior year from 3 (holy cow). Tyus is a great shooter, and clearly cerebral enough to only shoot high percentage 3pt shots. Bottomline, I think Trent will be an asset at the 3, but he isn't a knockdown shooter like Tyus, Kennard, or Allen.

Not that fast or athletic: He isn't Trevon Duval, if that's what your asking (and neither is Allen. Allen is highly athletic in college. Duval is 99.5% percentile). He's not overly quick, but he's very physical. I expect that the best wing will be guarded by Trent. Did I mention that his coaches have raved about his defensive potential?

One and done player: He's top 10, he's the top ranked SG. So, yeah, the writing is on the wall that he's OAD. But he doesn't have insane athleticism and he won't be a ~20ppg scorer his freshman year either. If he leaves, it's because he Carter/Duval both left and because he had a really good year. But he's not a clear cut OAD like Tatum or Duval.

[flyingdutchdevil]

The Plumlees made up most of those 40 mpg. And that was because we couldn't settle on the frontcourt. Neither the Plumlees nor Zoubek could lock down the C spot. By the time Zoubek got locked in, we basically ran a 6.5 man roation.

Same thing in 2001. We played essentially a 6.5-man rotation then too.

Both of those teams played less deep than this team will with DeLaurier, one of Tucker/O'Connell/White, and Vrankovic making a 7.5-man rotation.

I always use "10 minutes per game" as my metric for a true rotation player. Post-Maryland, when Zoubek blew up, MP1 and MP2 averaged 14.2 and 12.6 minutes per game (http://goduke.statsgeek.com/basketba...season=2009-10 and http://goduke.statsgeek.com/basketba...season=2009-10). And given that both averaged 16.4 and 14.1mpg, respectively, throughout the year, the LT/Zoubek front court didn't as much an affect as you'd think.

To me, the 2009-10 team absolutely featured a 7-man rotation, with Andre Dawkins being a little used sub when any of the 3 Ss were in foul trouble or needed a break.

[JasonEvans]

wait, what? per 247 O'Connell is 6'5" 170lb, and Tucker is 6'7" 200lb

Sorry, the "bigger" was a mistake. But O'Connell is really long. Have a look.

[bob blue devil]

The Plumlees made up most of those 40 mpg. And that was because we couldn't settle on the frontcourt. Neither the Plumlees nor Zoubek could lock down the C spot. By the time Zoubek got locked in, we basically ran a 6.5 man roation.

Same thing in 2001. We played essentially a 6.5-man rotation then too.

Both of those teams played less deep than this team will with DeLaurier, one of Tucker/O'Connell/White, and Vrankovic making a 7.5-man rotation.

when you say plumlees made up "most of" the minutes, you are technically correct, but really only because 2 of 3 players combined should get "most of" the minutes. miles played 16, mason played 14, andre played 13. i can see the argument of 6.5 if you call andre 0.5 and the combined plumlee rotation 1.0. i don't think it's 6 man rotation, however.

but if we're calling 13 mpg a 0.5 rotation player, then i don't think we should project vrank as a 1.0 rotation player (i personally doubt he'll get enough mpg to count as 0.5 rotation player assuming he doesn't supplant bolden).

and i suspect the best of tucker/o'connell/white will take-on more of that andre dawkins role of sometimes we need you and sometimes we don't. so maybe 6.5 rotation players is the right number to guess going into this season.

[kAzE]

Sorry, the "bigger" was a mistake. But O'Connell is really long. Have a look.

I think you might be mistaking his skinniness for length . . .

Maybe he's suddenly sprouted longer arms in the past few months, but he was measured in July 2016 at the Nike basketball academy with a 6'3.5" wingspan, which is below average for a basketball player of his height (6'4.5")

He's very, very skinny, but in terms of his actual measured length, he's not that long. If you just look at the picture you posted, the guy guarding him has way longer arms.

Regardless, Jordan Tucker has a 6'7" wingspan, so Alex O'Connell is neither bigger nor longer than Jordan Tucker. But I don't really think either of them play the same position anyway. JT is definitely a forward, and Alex is clearly a guard.

For the record, I don't think Alex plays much this year, unless there is a back court injury (hope not) or major back court foul trouble. JT is much more physically ready to compete at this level as a freshman.

[jipops]

That's impossible. Even if Coach K's an idiot, you'd have to give him credit for not playing Duval, Allen, and Trent 40 minutes a game. Somebody (most likely Tucker) will play the Andre Dawkins role from 2010, even if it's just 10-15 mpg.

Also, it looks like a mod extracted the post-Duval posts into another thread but didn't lock this thread. So now we have two minutes threads! The more the merrier?

I missed the other thread, but I didn't think the topic was necessarily minutes but who are going to be the guys that actually play. I guess that could go hand-in-hand with minutes discussion.

I could see the possibility of Tucker coming in for a few possessions in the first half during ACC play. But I have no expectation he will see any meaningful minutes. I can see his burn being similar to Jeter this past season before injury...a decent bit in the early part of the season and then almost nothing afterwards. If you want to consider that a part of the rotation, fine. But in my opinion we'll only see 6 guys playing any meaningful minutes.

I'd be stunned if Vrankovic plays more minutes than DeLaurier.

While I have to defer all inside knowledge to you, I'm going on a hunch here this will be the case just by going from what I have seen. It's basically a perception based hunch. Vrank showed himself to be pretty decent on the boards in his limited play and he has some offensive skill. And we're going to need all the help we can get on the boards this year. It also helps he's a solidly build 7-footer. Unless Javin has added something substantial to his offense or shows himself to be a reliable defender, I think these assets give Vrank the edge. I'm also not totally convinced that Bolden will have solved his high foul rate from last season.

[CDu]

when you say plumlees made up "most of" the minutes, you are technically correct, but really only because 2 of 3 players combined should get "most of" the minutes. miles played 16, mason played 14, andre played 13. i can see the argument of 6.5 if you call andre 0.5 and the combined plumlee rotation 1.0. i don't think it's 6 man rotation, however.

but if we're calling 13 mpg a 0.5 rotation player, then i don't think we should project vrank as a 1.0 rotation player (i personally doubt he'll get enough mpg to count as 0.5 rotation player assuming he doesn't supplant bolden).

and i suspect the best of tucker/o'connell/white will take-on more of that andre dawkins role of sometimes we need you and sometimes we don't. so maybe 6.5 rotation players is the right number to guess going into this season.

I didn't consider Vrankovic a 1.0 rotation player. He was the 0.5. I think DeLaurier will be a rotation player and one of Tucker/White/O'Connell will be a rotation player. Vrankovic and another of the wing trio will be available for the 0.5 spot as needed.