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View Full Version : DBR Podcast: Preseason notes from Newton_14 + a conversation about the NBA Draft



JasonEvans
10-24-2016, 09:23 PM
Listen on Soundcloud here (https://soundcloud.com/dbrpodcast/dbr-podcast-59-with-guest-commentary-from-mark-newton).

We really enjoyed the playground pick of the players (at the 21:21 mark). Let us know if I picked the better team or Sam did.

0:13 Intros (welcome to Mark Newton!)
2:12 Recap Countdown to Craziness
21:21 Game time! Sam and Jason pick from the current roster playground style!
26:27 We review Sam & Jason’s picks, Mark and Donald judge
30:15 Jason offers his way too early thoughts on the opening night starting 5
31:13 Mark takes the wheel and guides us through his experience at the Emily K charity open practice
52:57 We discuss the NBA keeping the One And Done rule; Jason opens up a can on the NBA
56:24 Donald plays devil’s advocate
57:45 Sam questions what the NCAA can do, comments on the system in general
1:08:12 Sam’s parting shot deals with Duke’s jersey aesthetics and short shorts!
1:12:05 Jason’s parting shot salutes Elton Brand and his retirement from the NBA
1:17:10 Donald’s parting shot shows love to DukeGang for their effort against Louisville
1:21:11 That’ll do it, thanks again to Mark Newton to join us! We’ll see you soon

OldPhiKap
10-24-2016, 09:31 PM
Look forward to hearing Mark!!!

Newton_14
10-24-2016, 09:48 PM
Listen on Soundcloud here (https://soundcloud.com/dbrpodcast/dbr-podcast-59-with-guest-commentary-from-mark-newton).

We really enjoyed the playground pick of the players (at the 21:21 mark). Let us know if I picked the better team or Sam did.

0:13 Intros (welcome to Mark Newton!)
2:12 Recap Countdown to Craziness
21:21 Game time! Sam and Jason pick from the current roster playground style!
26:27 We review Sam & Jason’s picks, Mark and Donald judge
30:15 Jason offers his way too early thoughts on the opening night starting 5
31:13 Mark takes the wheel and guides us through his experience at the Emily K charity open practice
52:57 We discuss the NBA keeping the One And Done rule; Jason opens up a can on the NBA
56:24 Donald plays devil’s advocate
57:45 Sam questions what the NCAA can do, comments on the system in general
1:08:12 Sam’s parting shot deals with Duke’s jersey aesthetics and short shorts!
1:12:05 Jason’s parting shot salutes Elton Brand and his retirement from the NBA
1:17:10 Donald’s parting shot shows love to DukeGang for their effort against Louisville
1:21:11 That’ll do it, thanks again to Mark Newton to join us! We’ll see you soon

I had an absolute blast guys! Really fun participating! Thanks much for having me as a guest and for all the hard work that goes into putting these things together weekly!

DukieTiger
10-25-2016, 12:49 AM
Good stuff, guys!

I particularly appreciated the recognition thrown Luke Kennard's way. I think his freshman season puts him on a favorable trajectory when compared to just about anyone.

The amazing thing about Luke, to me, was his ability to make 2-pointers as a freshman. He actually shot a higher percentage on 2-pt shots than JJ did his senior season, albeit with significantly fewer attempts. JJ never came close to 50% from 2pt range until his senior year and Luke did it as a freshman.

The only Duke guards I've found in 15 years of Pomeroy's database to shoot over 50% from 2pt range on >100 attempts are: Junior Jason Williams, Senior JJ Redick, (sneakily) Senior Sean Dockery, Junior/Senior Demarcus Nelson, Sophomore Gerald Henderson, Senior Nolan Smith, Junior/Senior Quinn Cook, Sophomore Grayson Allen and Freshman Luke Kennard.

That's a list of point guards, guys who relied on their quickness or athleticism to get to the rim; then Luke and JJ. Luke's in the top 3-4 of that group as a 3pt and free throw shooter- several of those guys weren't the greatest shooters- but got to the rim and finished well. He's probably also in the top 3 as a rebounder.

This somewhat arbitrary analysis is just my way of saying that Luke is going to belong in the upper echelon of Duke guards from recent history, even if he flies under the radar this year. I just wouldn't be shocked if he stole some of the spotlight away from his more recognized teammates.

JasonEvans
10-25-2016, 08:58 AM
I particularly appreciated the recognition thrown Luke Kennard's way. I think his freshman season puts him on a favorable trajectory when compared to just about anyone.

The amazing thing about Luke, to me, was his ability to make 2-pointers as a freshman. He actually shot a higher percentage on 2-pt shots than JJ did his senior season, albeit with significantly fewer attempts. JJ never came close to 50% from 2pt range until his senior year and Luke did it as a freshman.

The only Duke guards I've found in 15 years of Pomeroy's database to shoot over 50% from 2pt range on >100 attempts are: Junior Jason Williams, Senior JJ Redick, (sneakily) Senior Sean Dockery, Junior/Senior Demarcus Nelson, Sophomore Gerald Henderson, Senior Nolan Smith, Junior/Senior Quinn Cook, Sophomore Grayson Allen and Freshman Luke Kennard.

That's a list of point guards, guys who relied on their quickness or athleticism to get to the rim; then Luke and JJ. Luke's in the top 3-4 of that group as a 3pt and free throw shooter- several of those guys weren't the greatest shooters- but got to the rim and finished well. He's probably also in the top 3 as a rebounder.

This somewhat arbitrary analysis is just my way of saying that Luke is going to belong in the upper echelon of Duke guards from recent history, even if he flies under the radar this year. I just wouldn't be shocked if he stole some of the spotlight away from his more recognized teammates.

I am the chairman of the Luke Kennard fan club! I don't recall the exact podcast, but about midway through last season I made the prediction that Luke would be the next Duke player to surpass 2000 career points, which is really a big deal (takes a unique combo of big scoring, but not an early NBA departure).

I think he is well on his way with 425 points as a freshman. This season may be tough as there is going to be real competition for minutes on the wing. Still, I hope he can find his way to about 450 points or so (we may play a LOT of games this year, which will help). I would expect him to get 600+ with relative ease his final couple seasons.

-Jason "thanks for listening" Evans

UrinalCake
10-27-2016, 11:29 AM
Enjoyed the podcast as always. I went to the closed practice event last year and came away similarly impressed. A couple other things I experienced:
- after the practice they allowed any kids from the group to come down onto the court and shoot at a lowered basket. Several players spent time playing with the kids, in addition to mingling with the adults and letting everyone take pictures. After a few minutes Coach K's daughter (who was running the tour) told the players that they could leave, but many of them continued to stay so that the kids still in line could all have a turn with them. This was after they had just had a two hour practice, plus film sessions and whatever classes they had that morning. It really impressed me that they chose to do that, even when there weren't any ESPN cameras watching them. They are genuinely good kids.
- Duke basketball is a machine. During the practice the players were broken out into groups running drills with the assistant coaches. Then you have the managers assisting with everything from collecting balls, setting out water, handling equipment, etc. a video person is recording everything and I'm sure there's a whole team of people who will edit the video for later review. Our group was there watching the practice, and another group of marketing people was watching from a different part of the stadium. Somehow K manages to stay on top of everything going on.

Getting to the podcast discussion about the OAD rule - I disagree with Jason's assertion that the OAD rule doesn't help anyone. It absolutely helps the NBA. Prior to the one year rule, NBA teams were forced to draft high schoolers with very little information to go on; now they get to see them in college for a year and can make more informed decisions. Also, historically the players union has always been opposed to the OAD rule. It is true that letting players enter earlier would mean more competition, but they are in favor of players rights. They don't like the idea that the NBA prevents them (as a whole) from earning money right away. Also, the players who are in charge of leading the union are guys like Lebron and Chris Paul, who aren't worried about losing their roster spots to guys straight from high school. The players who would be most affected are the older journeymen types.

That's my two cents. Thanks as always for the great work that you do!

Billy Dat
10-27-2016, 12:17 PM
I, too, was very excited to hear the Newton_14 on the pod. I only wish you had given him 2 minutes to go off on any UNC-related rant of his choosing. Considering that Duke is stereotyped as an outsider school, his North Carolina accent full of Duke love and UNC antipathy reminds me that there are lots of Blue Devil fans within NC.


Getting to the podcast discussion about the OAD rule - I disagree with Jason's assertion that the OAD rule doesn't help anyone. It absolutely helps the NBA. Prior to the one year rule, NBA teams were forced to draft high schoolers with very little information to go on; now they get to see them in college for a year and can make more informed decisions. Also, historically the players union has always been opposed to the OAD rule. It is true that letting players enter earlier would mean more competition, but they are in favor of players rights. They don't like the idea that the NBA prevents them (as a whole) from earning money right away. Also, the players who are in charge of leading the union are guys like Lebron and Chris Paul, who aren't worried about losing their roster spots to guys straight from high school. The players who would be most affected are the older journeymen types.

The collective bargaining process seems to be rolling along with a "if it aint broke don't fix it" momentum where the players are thrilled with the jumping cap and everyone wants to avoid a work stoppage at all costs. That being said, I know that Carmelo has been speaking out about the NBA making a larger investment in the DLeague so that it becomes a more attractive option. The DLeague has really gotten much better in the past few years, I went to a game last year and it was full of well known college players really playing high level hoop with lots of effort. He spoke of wanting the NBA to require each NBA franchise to have a DLeague team, and to try and get a salary structure where guys were making $100K or so a year to keep them here instead of Europe. If that happened, and they dropped the 1 year college requirement, I think college hoops would take a big hit. I think this is why K has always pushed for a college basketball commissioner, to work with the NBA and the NBA players association on issues such as this. Of course, a system for paying the D1 college players also would help combat the lure, but I haven't seen a proposed system that would have a chance at working...yet.

JasonEvans
10-27-2016, 12:46 PM
The collective bargaining process seems to be rolling along with a "if it aint broke don't fix it" momentum where the players are thrilled with the jumping cap and everyone wants to avoid a work stoppage at all costs. That being said, I know that Carmelo has been speaking out about the NBA making a larger investment in the DLeague so that it becomes a more attractive option. The DLeague has really gotten much better in the past few years, I went to a game last year and it was full of well known college players really playing high level hoop with lots of effort. He spoke of wanting the NBA to require each NBA franchise to have a DLeague team, and to try and get a salary structure where guys were making $100K or so a year to keep them here instead of Europe. If that happened, and they dropped the 1 year college requirement, I think college hoops would take a big hit. I think this is why K has always pushed for a college basketball commissioner, to work with the NBA and the NBA players association on issues such as this. Of course, a system for paying the D1 college players also would help combat the lure, but I haven't seen a proposed system that would have a chance at working...yet.

I love that we are having a discussion about the D-League and OAD, even if folks disagree with me ;)

I think having a D-League team for every NBA team would be crazy. We don't need that many teams, not even close. What would work would be if every D-League team was co-owned by 2 NBA franchises. The NBA teams would be allowed to store up to 4 players on the D-league team, meaning each DL team would have 4 players from NBA team X, 4 players from NBA team Y, and 4 "free agents" that they get through the DL draft of players who are not signed by the NBA. If you got the salaries into the $75-$125k range (maybe give each DL team a $1 mil salary cap) then you would have a really attractive option for guys who want to preserve their NBA dream and not go to Europe or Asia. It is not like NBA teams could not afford this with ease.

As for OAD, I get UrinalCake's comments about why the players and the NBA like it, but I'd still love to see it changed and I am not convinced it is good for the league. As the league fills up with more and more OAD players we are seeing more guys who have not learned the game all that well come into the league. It takes them time to develop. The NBA is paying them to learn on the job. Wouldn't it be better for the NBA to let them learn in college a bit longer and then get them after their soph or junior years? Urinal says the NBA has a better idea of what it is getting after one year, well that impression would be even more refined if the players stayed in college for 2 or 3 years. As for the ones who come straight from high school -- caveat emptor. The league is full of high schoolers who made the leap quite nicely. Team just have to be more careful when drafting those kids.

From the standpoint of the players, I continue to think there is marketing and branding opportunity associated with staying in school for 2-3 years that does not exist for a OAD kid. What's more, it would force players to get at least a little closer to a degree and toward developing some understanding of the world around them. We hear so much about players blowing tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars and ending up broke soon after retiring from the NBA; I have to think that spending a year or two more in an intense learning environment would help with that at least a little bit.

-Jason "I mostly feel the way I do about OAD because of my love of the college game. I wish the NBA and the players would appreciate the gift it gives to the game of basketball and help to make it as successful as possible" Evans

Billy Dat
10-27-2016, 01:13 PM
-Jason "I mostly feel the way I do about OAD because of my love of the college game. I wish the NBA and the players would appreciate the gift it gives to the game of basketball and help to make it as successful as possible" Evans

I'm with you in that I love college basketball and don't want to see it threatened. I think the players/players association just can't get past the $. Yes, a 4-year Duke scholarship is worth probably $500K all in. Coach makes $7MM per year. I'm not sure how much the school makes off the team, but I know each ACC school got $26MM from the ACC for fiscal year 2014. The NCAA makes $1B per year from TV alone just for the tournament. So, no matter the complexities of the issue, the headline will always be "Schools and Coaches make millions while student athletes don't".

JasonEvans
10-27-2016, 03:41 PM
I'm with you in that I love college basketball and don't want to see it threatened. I think the players/players association just can't get past the $. Yes, a 4-year Duke scholarship is worth probably $500K all in. Coach makes $7MM per year. I'm not sure how much the school makes off the team, but I know each ACC school got $26MM from the ACC for fiscal year 2014. The NCAA makes $1B per year from TV alone just for the tournament. So, no matter the complexities of the issue, the headline will always be "Schools and Coaches make millions while student athletes don't".

Well, that is a whole different matter. I've said for a loooooong time that there should be a stipend and other compensation for college scholarship athletes in all sports. It is a tough issue though because only certain athletes in certain sports actually bring in vast sums of money for the schools. How do you treat the track, soccer, or volleyball player the same as the football or basketball star? For that matter, how do you treat the basketball/football walk-on or last scholarship player the same as the future first round draft pick? And how do you deal with a kid who plays for a small D1 school that never appears on national TV versus someone who plays for Duke where 95% of his games are broadcast to millions of people every night?

blazindw
10-28-2016, 08:41 PM
I agree that building up the D-League is what will help give it more stature. I think there is the eventual market for each NBA team to have their own D-League team. We're almost there...we have 22 D-League teams already, so only 8 more markets would be required. There are definitely markets for the teams that don't have D-League affiliates:

Atlanta Hawks - Macon or Savannah
Denver Nuggets - Colorado Springs
LA Clippers - San Diego
Milwaukee Bucks - Madison or Green Bay
Minnesota Timberwolves - Fargo or Eau Claire
New Orleans Pelicans - Baton Rouge
Portland Trailblazers - Spokane
Washington Wizards - Baltimore

Filling out the league would be step 1, as well as kicking up the money you can earn, as others have said. Unlike college, athletes can go straight to the D-League and enter the NBA that way if they're good enough. If the D-League can become a viable option for high school athletes who may not want to go to college to be seen, that would help the college game and the NBA game. I can watch a hundred college basketball games each week. If you don't have NBATV, you'll be hard pressed to be able to see even one D-League game in a season. There's the main issue.

UrinalCake
10-31-2016, 09:37 PM
Agree that making the D-league a more viable destination is probably the best solution. Let's face it, there are certain players that just don't belong in college for whatever reason. Only a small percentage of the general population goes to college, yet we expect 100% of basketball players to go to college. Does that make any sense? The common counter-argument is that guys who don't want to go to college should just to to Europe or the D-league, but I don't think those are viable options. Yes, there have been examples of high schoolers who played in Europe for a year, but it's not for everyone. It's a huge culture shock for an 18 year-old to play in a foreign country with grown men, and talent-wise only the elite OAD-level guys are going to be offered the opportunity.

The D-league is an option, but pales in comparison to playing in college. Seth Curry described the D-league as riding in buses to little towns in the middle of nowhere, walking down the street from the hotel to get fast food to eat, staying in cheap hotels, getting paid maybe $30k/year, etc. They'll play in mostly empty arenas, and everybody's out to pad their own stats. There's no incentive for the coaches to actually develop the players, because there's no NBA team associated with the D-league team that has a vested interested in the players getting better. Compared to playing for a major college program in front of packed arenas and millions of viewers in March, the D-league just doesn't make sense.

So now we have a system where kids who have no interest in college are forced to go. It's a system that is ripe for abuse. Duke does an amazing job of recruiting kids who want both - an education and a change to develop on the court, even if it's only for a year. I think we do things the right way given the way the system is set up, and we have certainly benefited from the OAD rule that allowed us to get players like Okafor, Kyrie, Jabari, Ingram, etc. But if the rules were changed and kids could go pro straight from high school or had better incentives to go to the D-league, I think Duke would still do just fine, we would simply adapt to the rules and build around players that would stay for multiple years.