NSDukeFan
05-07-2011, 12:28 PM
There is a long time between the team's final game (which unfortunately, like most years, was in March) and the start of the next regular season in November (or even summer league and the summer trip to China, as well as Countdown to Craziness and exhibition games.)
Since there is not a lot going on now and this is the only place I go where I could share this level of obsession, I thought I would share one of my pre-season rituals the last couple of years.
One of the main, if not the main, topics in the off-season is the projecting of playing time and scoring for the upcoming year. I always enjoy these discussions and have for the past couple of years written my projections down. I am certainly an optimist and for the past two years, at least, have expected the team would be very deep and that the top players would not need to play huge minutes. As you will see, I was, of course, wrong.
I have come to appreciate that coach K knows that in televised games, there are time-outs at least every 4 minutes and if his players are in great shape, the team can play its best players a lot of minutes, as long as he manages their physical workload the rest of the week.
Here is a table with my projections (Proj.) for 2009-10 vs. actual minutes (mpg) and points per game (ppg)
2009-2010
Player Proj. mpg Proj. ppg
Jon 31 37 17 18.2
Kyle 31 36 19 17.7
Nolan 27 35.5 12 17.4
Lance 23 25 8 4.8
Brian 20 19 8 5.6
Mason 20 14 7.5 3.7
Ryan 15 6.5 6.5 1.2
Andre 15 12.6 6.5 4.4
Miles 11 16.4 3.5 5.2
Olek 3 10 1 2.5
I expected an improvement from Nolan, but certainly not the great jump he made from sophomore to junior year. I also vastly underestimated the minutes the big 3 would end up playing. I also underestimated the jump that Miles would make and was premature in what I had expected for Mason, Andre and especially Ryan. I had actually hoped for more scoring from Lance and Zoubs in a similar amount of minutes, but I will happily take the contributions they gave.
2010-11
Player Proj mpg Proj ppg Proj rpg Proj apg Proj bpg
Kyle 29 35 19 17 8 6.8 3 1.6 1 0.3
Nolan 27 34 18 20.6 4.5 3.5 5.1
Kyrie 25 27.5 12 17.5 6 4.3
Miles 22 17 7 4.8 8 4.9 1.5 0.5
Mason 22 25.6 9 7.2 6 8.4 1.5 1.6 1.5 1.7
Seth 22 25 10 9 2 2
Ryan 21 20 8 6.6 5 3.7 1.5 0.8 1.4 1.4
Andre 17 21 7 8.1 1
Josh 10 6 3 1.4
Tyler 4 10 1 1.6
I again vastly underestimated the minutes that Kyle and Nolan would play. Kyle's numbers didn't increase like I had hoped, but Nolan took another jump, especially in assists. I overestimated all the bigs rebound numbers, except for Mason and I didn't expect Nolan (and Kyrie when he was in) to grab as many rebounds as he did. Andre increased his minutes and points more than I had projected, while Miles and Ryan were a bit below where I had thought/ hoped. Mason rebounded more, but scored a bit less than what I had projected.
It's a fun exercise I have done the past couple of years that I thought I would share, in case anyone was interested, or had any comments.
Since there is not a lot going on now and this is the only place I go where I could share this level of obsession, I thought I would share one of my pre-season rituals the last couple of years.
One of the main, if not the main, topics in the off-season is the projecting of playing time and scoring for the upcoming year. I always enjoy these discussions and have for the past couple of years written my projections down. I am certainly an optimist and for the past two years, at least, have expected the team would be very deep and that the top players would not need to play huge minutes. As you will see, I was, of course, wrong.
I have come to appreciate that coach K knows that in televised games, there are time-outs at least every 4 minutes and if his players are in great shape, the team can play its best players a lot of minutes, as long as he manages their physical workload the rest of the week.
Here is a table with my projections (Proj.) for 2009-10 vs. actual minutes (mpg) and points per game (ppg)
2009-2010
Player Proj. mpg Proj. ppg
Jon 31 37 17 18.2
Kyle 31 36 19 17.7
Nolan 27 35.5 12 17.4
Lance 23 25 8 4.8
Brian 20 19 8 5.6
Mason 20 14 7.5 3.7
Ryan 15 6.5 6.5 1.2
Andre 15 12.6 6.5 4.4
Miles 11 16.4 3.5 5.2
Olek 3 10 1 2.5
I expected an improvement from Nolan, but certainly not the great jump he made from sophomore to junior year. I also vastly underestimated the minutes the big 3 would end up playing. I also underestimated the jump that Miles would make and was premature in what I had expected for Mason, Andre and especially Ryan. I had actually hoped for more scoring from Lance and Zoubs in a similar amount of minutes, but I will happily take the contributions they gave.
2010-11
Player Proj mpg Proj ppg Proj rpg Proj apg Proj bpg
Kyle 29 35 19 17 8 6.8 3 1.6 1 0.3
Nolan 27 34 18 20.6 4.5 3.5 5.1
Kyrie 25 27.5 12 17.5 6 4.3
Miles 22 17 7 4.8 8 4.9 1.5 0.5
Mason 22 25.6 9 7.2 6 8.4 1.5 1.6 1.5 1.7
Seth 22 25 10 9 2 2
Ryan 21 20 8 6.6 5 3.7 1.5 0.8 1.4 1.4
Andre 17 21 7 8.1 1
Josh 10 6 3 1.4
Tyler 4 10 1 1.6
I again vastly underestimated the minutes that Kyle and Nolan would play. Kyle's numbers didn't increase like I had hoped, but Nolan took another jump, especially in assists. I overestimated all the bigs rebound numbers, except for Mason and I didn't expect Nolan (and Kyrie when he was in) to grab as many rebounds as he did. Andre increased his minutes and points more than I had projected, while Miles and Ryan were a bit below where I had thought/ hoped. Mason rebounded more, but scored a bit less than what I had projected.
It's a fun exercise I have done the past couple of years that I thought I would share, in case anyone was interested, or had any comments.