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Saratoga2
03-16-2009, 06:11 AM
With a quiet period before the tourney starts, I spent some time musing about player abilities in general and how our kids stack up:

Duke recruiting is fortunate in that it can attract a lot of high performance athletes, with a high percentage of them being McDonald’s All Americans. Duke offers a lot of television exposure, high academic standards, and a storied program with great coaching. To some extent, the academics may limit our recruitment of athletes, but I like to look upon it as a positive.

Our recruits come in with lots of previous achievements and the fan base has varying expectations for these kids based on their demonstrated abilities. I tend to look at what these kids offer the program as to how they fit in a few categories, as follows:

Native abilities: Size, length, strength, speed, quickness, spring, peripheral vision, stamina, toughness, etc. Some of these native abilities can be enhanced through proper training. Strength, stamina and spring come to mind.

Acquired abilities: Handle, shooting form from the line, pull-up and from the trey, setting screens, boxing out, defensive position, communication, recognition of defensive and offensive sets, etc. It is a rare freshman that has a grasp of the fundamentals as played at the Div I level, and all have much to learn.

Maturity: Recognition of the game situation, such as clock time remaining, who is playing against you, the abilities of those playing with you. Clearly the more mature player can stay aggressive without forcing the ball, will stay out of being trapped, will make the extra pass and will limit turnovers.

Looking at our current crop of players with these categories in mind, I see the following:
Singler: Great natural abilities that have been enhanced through training and hard work. Increasing game recognition and is reaching a level of maturity where he seldom will force the ball but still remains aggressive.

Scheyer: His natural abilities are not as high as Singler, but he has trained himself so well and in so many facets of the game that he has become a real star in his own right. He has always had that quality of game recognition and seems to be taking that to a level we haven’t seen at Duke in a while.

Henderson: He is another one with great natural abilities, and has learned how to score and is a fine defender. He could improve his handle a little and his game recognition and maturity could be improved. I hope he stays the extra year and raises his maturity level. He is already a star and a major force in the game, but could be even better.

McClure: He has decent native abilities, but has not really developed his offensive game. He has made up for that with his game recognition and has trained himself to be an excellent defender and rebounder. We will really miss his presence next year.

Paulus: His native abilities are lower than our other guards, but he is tough and scrappy and has a very good handle. He has developed his shooting-touch but I think his game recognition and situational play has not matured to what I would have expected of a guard with so much PT.

Thomas: Expectations for him were moderate, since his offensive game was undeveloped coming in. He has good native skills but has yet to develop into an offensive threat and his defense and rebounding have not reached the high level needed of him. I also don’t see the game recognition factor as being fulfilled at this point in his career.

Zoubek: You can’t teach size and he has that native ability in spades. He doesn’t have the speed to play in the Duke man to man, but when given a favorable assignment, he can provide a defensive presence inside. I see improvement in his game this year and he has matured from the foot shuffling kid to a decent Div I player.

Smith: Loads of native ability and he is in the process of acquiring the skills of playing as a part of this team and how to use his skills effectively. He needs more time to mature into the point guard mentality we may need from him, but he has a great role model on the team to emulate. Love his defense and he can score.

Williams: Very high native abilities in most categories. He can work on strength and he can develop his shot package going forward to become a star for Duke. He is already an excellent defender and a fearless rebounder. I expect much more from him next year with a summer to work on his rough spots.

Plumlee: He also has fine natural abilities so it is a matter of development of his defensive presence, his shooting and his maturity that needs to take place. I wish he could have done more this year, but we have to respect coach K’s opinions, as he see the kids play every day.

Cyzy: We haven’t seen much of him this year, but he is a kid with lots of native ability and might surprise us going forward.

Going forward, we will be getting Kelly and Plumlee and we shouldn’t expect them to walk in the door and be instant Div I star players. There will be a good nucleus of players next year and they can develop in the system and perhaps fill our need for inside presence and scoring.