2011 S.J.G Greater NC Pro-Am @ NC Central- Discussion Thread

[Jderf]

It strikes me that sooner or later a high % of threads evolve, as has this one, into Duke v. Carolina. As it should be. To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever.

The Godwin's Law of DBR? Gumbomoop's Law?

As a DBR discussion grow's longer, the probability of a debate between UNC and Duke's current teams/rosters approaches 1.

[gumbomoop]

The Godwin's Law of DBR? Gumbomoop's Law?

As a DBR discussion grow's longer, the probability of a debate between UNC and Duke's current teams/rosters approaches 1.

Alas, I may have broken too many laws, in too many states [countries, now I think about it], to be eligible to have one named after me.

Perhaps "gumbomoop's misdemeanor" would work.... Or Jderf's Law, depending on Jderf's ... ummm ... priors.

[Hoosier-Devil]

Do we know what players probably/should be/will be showing up for this week's games? I've got a brother-in-law in town who is interested in going, but I don't want to waste his time if this week's participation will be sparse. Thanks to anyone who might know.

[jimrowe0]

Do we know what players probably/should be/will be showing up for this week's games? I've got a brother-in-law in town who is interested in going, but I don't want to waste his time if this week's participation will be sparse. Thanks to anyone who might know.

Jaywill tweeted last week that he was going to play this week, not sure if it is true or not.

[watzone]

Jaywill tweeted last week that he was going to play this week, not sure if it is true or not.

I had a nice long chat with him last week and he said he would play this week. However, you never know for sure with the NC Pro Am. As it stands now, if the Duke players do not show up, it's not all that entertaining in that the Heels are no longer playing and the NCSU guys never have this year. I could be wrong on that for I missed a few games being on the road.

[CDu]

I had a nice long chat with him last week and he said he would play this week. However, you never know for sure with the NC Pro Am. As it stands now, if the Duke players do not show up, it's not all that entertaining in that the Heels are no longer playing and the NCSU guys never have this year. I could be wrong on that for I missed a few games being on the road.

I thought I remember seeing clips of Lorenzo Brown during some games.

[Kedsy]

I thought I remember seeing clips of Lorenzo Brown during some games.

Yeah, in the now-famous Austin Rivers ankle-breaker, isn't Lorenzo Brown the defender?

[DukieInBrasil]

Yeah, in the now-famous Austin Rivers ankle-breaker, isn't Lorenzo Brown the defender?

Shouldn't that read "...Lorenzo Brown the "defender"?"
He looked more like a cat after eating cat-nip, chasing after things that aren't really there.

[lotusland]

I'm not sure I buy into this line of reasoning. Would Nolan have been ACC POY if Kyrie didn't go down with the toe injury? I seriously doubt it. In fact I think Kyrie would have had a very good shot at being the ACC POY based on what we saw from him those first 8 games. He clearly was capable of putting up big scoring numbers and he made Mason a better player than Nolan did, because of his ability to penetrate and dish. I realize Nolan had some really nice assist stats last year, but Kyrie was definitely on a level all his own.

This year Seth knows what's expected of him, while last year there was the question mark of whether it was Seth or Dre as the first off the bench. Dre appears bigger and badder than last year and should have the 3 spot locked up. The frontline players all have an extra year under their belt and all 3 should be better than last year.

Therefore I don't believe AR has to shoulder as much of the burden as some people would make us believe. I believe he's shown he can fit into a team oriented offense and if need be he can be a go to kind of player.

Nolan was ACC POY, ACC first team all defensive team, first team AA and a National POY candidate (finished 4th). I hope AR has that kind of season but I doubt it as a Frosh. HB honestly is an outstanding player but it took 3/4 of the season last year to figure it out. Nobody gets more love than backup quarterbacks and recruits before they play. It happens every year.

[gumbomoop]

Like all Duke fans, I hope AR has a very strong year. We know he'll make mistakes, may not pick up the K-D schemes quickly enough, might be a high volume shooter.

Two comparisons to consider:

1. Austin and Kyrie - Here we should perhaps not expect quite so much from Austin as we did from Kyrie before last season, for the reason that K has been rather more circumspect in his praise of Austin than he was re Kyrie. Well before last season, K several times publicly gushed about what a special player Kyrie "already was." His language re Austin is probably more guarded, with references to how good Austin "can become." I'm optimistic [no surprise there] that Austin's multiple talents will emerge, now that his teammates are so talented. He had to be close to a one-man gang in HS. Not so in 2011-'12.

2. Austin and HB - Even if one acknowledges that HB was a fine player by the end of his frosh year, with multiple skills [though not quite so many as Kyrie possessed...], no one can possibly believe that his handle was more than barely adequate for a wing. HB certainly has admitted that's his biggest weakness. Well, AR doesn't have that weakness. [Bit of an understatement, yep.] AR's handle is maybe Kyrie-quality.

2a. For bball, I most value, as a physical skill, dribbling; for the mental part of the game, relentlessness. AR's handle is top-notch, and I think I see relentless determination on O. On D, no clue. [i.e, I have no clue as to whether he has any clue]

2b. HB? Well, I give him credit for looking relentless, and even for playing that way ... against Singler. Consistently? I don't remember thinking HB was a model of relentlessness. Nor was he a model of handle-smoothness. I hope he wasn't relentlessly working on his handle at the CPaul camp. For me, a key question re HB is whether he's as "driven" as Roy claims, or whether he's so self-consciously playing the Falcon that he's substituting the gloss of relentlessness for the real thing. In short, is HB's relentlessness true, or faux?

[Starter]

1. Austin and Kyrie - Here we should perhaps not expect quite so much from Austin as we did from Kyrie before last season, for the reason that K has been rather more circumspect in his praise of Austin than he was re Kyrie. Well before last season, K several times publicly gushed about what a special player Kyrie "already was." His language re Austin is probably more guarded, with references to how good Austin "can become." I'm optimistic [no surprise there] that Austin's multiple talents will emerge, now that his teammates are so talented. He had to be close to a one-man gang in HS. Not so in 2011-'12.

Good comments in total. I'd say Rivers and Irving are similar in talent, though Kyrie probably had more polish coming into college. I wonder if the difference in tone for Krzyzewski when talking about the two is also correlated to the players involved. Perhaps he feels he needs to keep Rivers grounded a bit, while the "humble and hungry" Irving was assessed to more readily be able to handle platitudes of this nature. In addition, I think he wanted Kyrie to know he was desired to carve out a spot on this relatively veteran team with two All-American types, and was pumping him up to begin with. As Gumbomoop said, they don't need Rivers to completely take over, not on a team with the depth at guard they're going to have next season.

[Greg_Newton]

Well, I was going to post highlights of Gbinije, Miles and Curry (missed Dre's 2nd half and the Mason game), but my stupid dog just knocked over a glass of water onto my laptop. So, maybe in a couple days, if it ever comes back on.

Gbinije was really impressive, though; he's almost like Kyrie (to a lesser extent, obviously) in that it's hard to speed him up and he always seems to get that extra inch or step he needs to get where he needs to be. Great feel for the game, long, quick, athletic, powerful, he's basically the perfect physical SF. It's a little weird how night and day his jumper is, though; he either can't miss, or he's banking shots and missing badly long. Might be a function of how much arm he uses and how high his release point is.

Miles didn't look very good to me. Footwork was terrible, honestly, and he still looked unsure of what to do with the ball, even in a pickup game versus lesser competition. He also lost a lot of rebounds he shouldn't have, which was probably a result of not playing very hard, but it's not exactly the mentality you like to see out of your lone senior, physical big man.

Dre looked even worse in the first half; self-conscious handle, forced moves resulting in bad shots, to the point where the announcer/crowd was clowning him a little after he started pouting after a couple of weak drives. Sheed gave him a couple talking to's, which was cool to see, and to Dre's credit, he nailed a ballsy pull-up three right after being subbed back in after this stretch. Wish I'd seen his second half though, where he apparently increased his point total from 4 to 29 in leading his team to the win.

Lastly, I was super impressed by Seth. In the half I saw, he was pretty clearly the best player on the court (which included Dre, Demontez Stitt, Sheed and NBA player (?) Josh Powell). The stroke was there, and he was just moving really [i]fast[/]; he looked like a legit PG pushing the ball in the open court at full-speed, and was getting into the lane at will for quick floaters and assists with a Stephen-esque sneaky first step and timing. When he gets in that zone where it's like he's seeing everything slow-mo and thinking twice as fast as everyone else, it's fun to watch. Little doubt in my mind he'll be our PG this year after tonight.

[CPDUKEGUY24]

Shouldn't that read "...Lorenzo Brown the "defender"?"
He looked more like a cat after eating cat-nip, chasing after things that aren't really there.

Funniest post of the week, was literally laughing out loud. Thank you DukeInBrasil.

[meloveduke]

Well, I was going to post highlights of Gbinije, Miles and Curry (missed Dre's 2nd half and the Mason game), but my stupid dog just knocked over a glass of water onto my laptop. So, maybe in a couple days, if it ever comes back on.

Gbinije was really impressive, though; he's almost like Kyrie (to a lesser extent, obviously) in that it's hard to speed him up and he always seems to get that extra inch or step he needs to get where he needs to be. Great feel for the game, long, quick, athletic, powerful, he's basically the perfect physical SF. It's a little weird how night and day his jumper is, though; he either can't miss, or he's banking shots and missing badly long. Might be a function of how much arm he uses and how high his release point is.

Miles didn't look very good to me. Footwork was terrible, honestly, and he still looked unsure of what to do with the ball, even in a pickup game versus lesser competition. He also lost a lot of rebounds he shouldn't have, which was probably a result of not playing very hard, but it's not exactly the mentality you like to see out of your lone senior, physical big man.

Dre looked even worse in the first half; self-conscious handle, forced moves resulting in bad shots, to the point where the announcer/crowd was clowning him a little after he started pouting after a couple of weak drives. Sheed gave him a couple talking to's, which was cool to see, and to Dre's credit, he nailed a ballsy pull-up three right after being subbed back in after this stretch. Wish I'd seen his second half though, where he apparently increased his point total from 4 to 29 in leading his team to the win.

Lastly, I was super impressed by Seth. In the half I saw, he was pretty clearly the best player on the court (which included Dre, Demontez Stitt, Sheed and NBA player (?) Josh Powell). The stroke was there, and he was just moving really [i]fast[/]; he looked like a legit PG pushing the ball in the open court at full-speed, and was getting into the lane at will for quick floaters and assists with a Stephen-esque sneaky first step and timing. When he gets in that zone where it's like he's seeing everything slow-mo and thinking twice as fast as everyone else, it's fun to watch. Little doubt in my mind he'll be our PG this year after tonight.

Thanks for the review, and I hope all is well with that laptop. Good luck with it...

[watzone]

FTR, Andre has 24 second half points to end the game with 29. Seth dropped 36. Here is a video interview with Miles Plumlee from last evening - http://bluedevilnation.net/2011/07/m...he-n-c-pro-am/

[Greg_Newton]

Thanks for the review, and I hope all is well with that laptop. Good luck with it...

Thanks. I've got pretty much every point Gbinije scored yesterday on video if it ever comes back on, including the "double dunk" with Miles... so fingers crossed!

[devildeac]

Some guy's picture with prince harry:



Front page material?

Ranks right up there with the guy wearing the "I don't give a s**t about carolina" t-shirt taken with ol' roy that has been on the front page here on more than one occasion.

roy.jpg

Finally had a friend find the photo for me.

This is the same friend who "helped" Art Chansky set up his password for his computer at work recently and made sure that part of his password read something like this:


xxx9Fxxx


24.gif

devil9f.gif

[meloveduke]

Thanks. I've got pretty much every point Gbinije scored yesterday on video if it ever comes back on, including the "double dunk" with Miles... so fingers crossed!

Even if the motherboard is shot, the hard drive may still give up the goods. I would flip it and remove the batt, hard drive, and all the covers that cover the memmory and other things. Then just let it dry for a few days, this has worked in the past for me and my dad at his computer shop. I think places like best buy can hook the hard drive up and try to pull files off it if it will let you. I hope you get the video off, cause I love me some Duke highlights in the summer.

[CMARTZ]

In the mean time, here's another video with lots of our guys in it. Seth looks great, though I can't say anybody looks as impressive as Nolan did this time last year. Man are we gonna miss him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETeNWpe9TLs


For a refresher, here's some of what Nolan pulled last year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGiVNcJ7UI

[roywhite]

Appreciate the videos and comments from those who have attended the Pro-Am.

Haven't seen any indication of Quinn Cook in action.
Have I missed that, or is he sitting out?
Any issues with the knee injury he had a while back?