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View Full Version : Rodney Hood Interview about the draft



gwlaw99
05-06-2014, 04:00 PM
http://www.hoopsrumors.com/2014/05/draft-prospect-rodney.html

Bob Green
05-06-2014, 04:05 PM
I liked this Q & A:


How do you respond to concerns over your defense?

“I think it’s way overblown. Obviously, I need to make some improvement, but every game I was guarding the best player, whether they play the 2 or the 3. I won Duke’s Defensive Player of the Year award this year, [coach Mike Krzyzewski] always put me on the best player, so I think Coach K knows what I’m doing out there. I’m not saying I’m the best player on D but I don’t think that’s a big weakness or anything to worry about.”

It was an absolute pleasure watching Hood play this past season. Hopefully he has a very long and successful NBA career.

UrinalCake
05-07-2014, 10:00 AM
He sounds very confident in himself, and confirms what most of us thought in that he planned to only play for one year at Duke. He has a chance to do well in the league, so while it would have been nice to have him for another year, I wish him all the best.

Here's a crazy conspiracy theory: what if Duke gave him the best defensive player award because they knew it would help his draft stock? I really feel like Tyler and Rasheed were better defenders, but they're coming back, so it kind of makes sense to give the award to Rodney.

flyingdutchdevil
05-07-2014, 11:49 AM
He sounds very confident in himself, and confirms what most of us thought in that he planned to only play for one year at Duke. He has a chance to do well in the league, so while it would have been nice to have him for another year, I wish him all the best.

Here's a crazy conspiracy theory: what if Duke gave him the best defensive player award because they knew it would help his draft stock? I really feel like Tyler and Rasheed were better defenders, but they're coming back, so it kind of makes sense to give the award to Rodney.

Or maybe Rodney really was the best defender on the team? And that says a ton about how bad we were defensively.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king...

CDu
05-07-2014, 11:59 AM
Here's a crazy conspiracy theory: what if Duke gave him the best defensive player award because they knew it would help his draft stock? I really feel like Tyler and Rasheed were better defenders, but they're coming back, so it kind of makes sense to give the award to Rodney.

I actually don't think Sulaimon was a better defender this year. I think he had the desire to be a better defender, but his reaction time and/or lateral quickness were lacking and as such he got burned repeatedly off the dribble. Thornton was an excellent off-ball defender, but he was never a strong on-ball defender.

What Hood said about regularly guarding the opposition's best wing was accurate. That was his assignment. It was a difficult assignment, and it didn't always work out well. But I assume that's why he got honored as team DPoY by Coach K. I don't think Coach K would give that honor to an undeserving player to help his draft stock; it goes against his principles of rewarding players for what they've earned.

Saratoga2
05-07-2014, 07:21 PM
I actually don't think Sulaimon was a better defender this year. I think he had the desire to be a better defender, but his reaction time and/or lateral quickness were lacking and as such he got burned repeatedly off the dribble. Thornton was an excellent off-ball defender, but he was never a strong on-ball defender.

What Hood said about regularly guarding the opposition's best wing was accurate. That was his assignment. It was a difficult assignment, and it didn't always work out well. But I assume that's why he got honored as team DPoY by Coach K. I don't think Coach K would give that honor to an undeserving player to help his draft stock; it goes against his principles of rewarding players for what they've earned.

Unfortunately the whole defense had issues. I wonder who coach K thought was second best? Was it Amile?

sagegrouse
05-08-2014, 12:19 PM
Unfortunately the whole defense had issues. I wonder who coach K thought was second best? Was it Amile?

It would be bad form, wouldn't it, to leave the defender's award vacant 'cuz no one was deserving?

Seriously guys, there were two warnings that our defense was the pits this year: (1) in December, when Josh and Tyler entered the starting lineup for a few games. I mean, these guys are not great defenders, but at least they know the defensive schemes. (2) When Tyler moved into the starting lineup at point guard for good. I love me some Tyler Thornton, but he is not a major college point guard. It had to be for defense, and, while tough as nails and the master of the hard foul, he is not especially quick or skilled at defense.

And because we lose 60 percent of our scoring, and 56 percent of our fouls (53 percent of our minutes), I have a hard time understanding our projected top five ranking. Plus, we lose our best defender and Tyler, who played mostly because of defense -- it is hard to see how we are gonna be better at defense.

But, maybe we will be better at defense. That would require a big step forward by Matt Jones, not to mention Rasheed, who is certainly athletic enough but tended to lose focus. Marshall can swat 'em with the best of college centers. There may be a potential role for Semi as a defender. We would need Jahlil to be a lot better at defense than Jabari. And it would help a lot if Justise is a good defender on day one, although to my knowledge that his never happened for a freshman under Coach K. It may take a miracle for Duke to be significantly better at defense in 2015 than this year.

MCFinARL
05-08-2014, 12:46 PM
It would be bad form, wouldn't it, to leave the defender's award vacant 'cuz no one was deserving?

Seriously guys, there were two warnings that our defense was the pits this year: (1) in December, when Josh and Tyler entered the starting lineup for a few games. I mean, these guys are not great defenders, but at least they know the defensive schemes. (2) When Tyler moved into the starting lineup at point guard for good. I love me some Tyler Thornton, but he is not a major college point guard. It had to be for defense, and, while tough as nails and the master of the hard foul, he is not especially quick or skilled at defense.

And because we lose 60 percent of our scoring, and 56 percent of our fouls (53 percent of our minutes), I have a hard time understanding our projected top five ranking. Plus, we lose our best defender and Tyler, who played mostly because of defense -- it is hard to see how we are gonna be better at defense.

But, maybe we will be better at defense. That would require a big step forward by Matt Jones, not to mention Rasheed, who is certainly athletic enough but tended to lose focus. Marshall can swat 'em with the best of college centers. There may be a potential role for Semi as a defender. We would need Jahlil to be a lot better at defense than Jabari. And it would help a lot if Justise is a good defender on day one, although to my knowledge that his never happened for a freshman under Coach K. It may take a miracle for Duke to be significantly better at defense in 2015 than this year.

Your point is well taken. Clearly, pre-season rankings, especially for teams with top freshmen coming in, focus mostly on potential offense, where Duke's lineup next year looks reasonably promising despite the losses, although not without some potential issues. But the defense is a big question. Ultimately, a lot for next year may ride on whether the coaches can develop a defensive strategy that the existing players can adapt to, and the new players can learn, fairly quickly.

flyingdutchdevil
05-08-2014, 02:11 PM
Your point is well taken. Clearly, pre-season rankings, especially for teams with top freshmen coming in, focus mostly on potential offense, where Duke's lineup next year looks reasonably promising despite the losses, although not without some potential issues. But the defense is a big question. Ultimately, a lot for next year may ride on whether the coaches can develop a defensive strategy that the existing players can adapt to, and the new players can learn, fairly quickly.

Sadly, this is so true. Offensively, we know we're going to be good. Most likely not last year good, but very good. We have skilled PGs, skilled Cs, and really interesting pieces in the middle.

As for defense? If we are going to rely on a sophomore who averaged 7 minutes and a stellar freshman as our defensive prowess, then we're in for another long season.

Ideally, I hope that Sulaimon, Jefferson, and M. Jones focus on defense, defense, and more defense this off-season. As for Cook, I'm not sure that he has the tools to be even a capable defender. His sheer lack of lateral quickness and athleticism is slightly worrisome on the defensive end.

Kedsy
05-08-2014, 02:22 PM
And because we lose 60 percent of our scoring, and 56 percent of our fouls (53 percent of our minutes), I have a hard time understanding our projected top five ranking.

Well, this might be true if the quality of college basketball teams could be accurately measured by how much the team lost from the year before. I prefer to look at what we'll have instead of what we lost. Especially with a team as deep as Duke was last season, along with the top incoming class in the country, it's pretty easy to understand why people think Duke will be even better than last year's top ten team, despite losing 60% of our scoring, etc.

Put another way, it's not like we won't have really good players taking over the 53% of our minutes that are gone. Those two top scorers who we lost were also our two highest usage players. Their shots are going to go to someone, and our returning players and newcomers should all be pretty capable with those shots, so I don't expect our offense to lag much, if at all.


Plus, we lose our best defender and Tyler, who played mostly because of defense -- it is hard to see how we are gonna be better at defense.

Team defense is about a lot of things, and unless the loss is someone like Aaron Craft I don't think you can predict next year's defense based on last year's defense. Who can say how quickly the new guys pick up the rotations? Who can say how much the D will take advantage of having a real big man at center for most/all of the game?


It may take a miracle for Duke to be significantly better at defense in 2015 than this year.

Personally, I think it's almost a lock that our defense will be better. How much better, I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure it will be better.


Marshall can swat 'em with the best of college centers.

OK, here's where I'm going to go the other way. Marshall is certainly an adequate shot blocker, but in a 15-team ACC, he ranked 16th in block percentage among players who played 220 or more minutes this season (and 14 of the 15 ahead of him played more minutes than Marshall did). And that's just the ACC. So statistically at least, he has not yet shown the ability to "swat 'em with the best of college centers."