Kedsy
11-10-2016, 05:56 PM
The season is finally upon us. An anodyne, if you will, for various current events. Mark got the ball rolling with his fine Phase 0 report. Let’s keep up the momentum, with Phase I.
It begins against Marist (#242 in preseason Pomeroy) and ends against Appalachian State (#298). Between those cupcakes, we play two top 50 teams (#3 Kansas and either #28 Cincinnati OR #43 Rhode Island), two top 100 teams (#98 Penn State and #92 William and Mary), and a top 200 team (#187 Grand Canyon). Not particularly inspiring, but a couple of tests. Next Tuesday's game against Kansas could be a highlight game nationally. On to the Phase:
HEALTH!!!
Some believe health shouldn't always be phase posts’ first topic. Some believe it shouldn't be a phase topic at all. But let's face it, the season hasn't even started and we already have three Vigil threads. Plus two of our three captains have been banged up and missed time in the public practices and exhibition games (and the one captain who didn't miss time is coming off a season-long injury). Admittedly there's not a lot to discuss here that hasn't already been said, but whether Duke can get and stay healthy is probably the biggest question of the 2016-17 season.
I don't have insights into the injuries to Harry Giles, Jayson Tatum, and Marques Bolden. From what I can gather, Jayson should be back soon, Harry should ease in probably in December, and Marques is out indefinitely (which appears to mean different things to different people at different times). Anyone with better knowledge is encouraged to chime in.
HOW GOOD IS DUKE?
Assuming we get and stay healthy, let’s tackle the overarching prospects for the team. How good is Duke, really? I'll start with the famous John Gasaway article (https://johngasaway.com/2015/10/19/the-category-5-roster/) about "Category 5" rosters. If you haven't read the article, Gasaway combines a point system to quantify recruiting ranking and measures experience by a metric he calls "returning possession-minutes." If your team has 25 recruting points AND 40 RPMs, then you're a Category 5 roster.
There have only been five Category 5 rosters in the one-and-done era (none last season). Two won the national championship (including Duke in 2015), two others made the Final Four, and the last two made the Elite Eight. Long story short, Duke in 2016-17 is Category 5 roster number six.
By my calculation, our team this year has more than 36 recruiting points (second best in college basketball since 2002, after 2013-14 UK), and over 60 RPMs, a little better than Kentucky's almost-undefeated 2014-15 team (60 points exactly). We're going to be pretty good this year.
Pollsters agree. Duke is the preseason #1 team, the 7th time in Coach K's Duke career with that honor. Also our 4th straight year in the preseason top 5 (15th overall under Coach K) and our 9th straight year in the preseason top 10 (27th overall under Coach K).
Of our previous six preseason #1 teams, four (67%) ended the regular season ranked #1 (the exceptions: 2011, ending the regular season #5, and 1989, ending #9). Three of the six made the Final Four, including the 1992 national champions.
Our eight additional pre-season top five teams included two national champions and two other Final Four teams. Adding Duke's five pre-season #6 teams, in those 20 seasons we had four of our five national championships (the exception: 2010, ranked #9 in the pre-season AP) and nine of our 12 Final Fours under Coach K (all but 2010, 1990, and 1988).
HOW DEEP IS DUKE?
Duke rarely carries a full roster, but this season we have 13 recruited scholarship players. Will Coach K make full use of that depth, or will he retreat to his usual 7 or 8 man rotations?
The short answer is he's never gone beyond an 8-man rotation (in important games). The existential answer asks what is a rotation and what does it mean to be in it. Perhaps a more nuanced answer is there's depth and then there's depth.
Across the "RSCI era," here’s how many Duke players came out of high school in the Top 15, Top 25, and/or Top 35.
Year Top 15 Top 25 Top 35 30+ pt wins 20+ pt wins* Reg Season AP rk NCAAT Notes
2000 3 5 6 9 12 #1 S16 N James top 25? C Carrawell top 35?
2001 4 6 7 12 20 #1 Champ N James top 25?
2002 3 4 6 9 18 #1 S16 tfr in D Jones better than #98
2003 4 6 8 2 7 #7 S16 tfr in D Jones better than #98
2004 5 6 8 5 13 #6 F4 top 35 M Thompson tfr out in Dec.
2005 3 5 6 6 7 #3 S16
2006 4 6 6 4 9 #1 S16
2007 3 6 7 1 7 unr r64
2008 3 7 9 4 10 #9 r32
2009 4 7 8 5 10 #6 S16
2010 2 7 8 7 17 #3 Champ A Dawkins as top 25?
2011 3 6 7 6 13 #5 S16 top 15 K Irving injured most of season; A Dawkins as top 25? tfr in S Curry better than unr
2012 2 4 7 3 6 #8 r64 A Dawkins as top 25? tfr in S Curry better than unranked
2013 2 4 6 3 10 #6 E8 tfr in S Curry better than unranked
2014 2 4 9 5 10 #8 r64 A Dawkins as top 25?
2015 4 6 9 5 13 #4 Champ top 15 R Sulaimon left team end of Jan.; top 35 S Ojeleye transferred out in Dec.
2016 3 6 7 4 8 #19 S16 top 25 A Jefferson injured most of season
2017 5 8 10
(* - all 20+ point wins, including 30+ point wins)
If everyone is healthy, this suggests this year's Duke team has the most quality depth of any Duke team since the RSCI was invented. (Though the 1998 and 1999 teams, just before the RSCI era began, were really deep teams for which we don't have data -- those teams may have met or even exceeded the 2017 team's quality depth.) Duke has 10 players on its roster ranked in the RSCI top 35 (only three previous rosters had as many as 9 - 2008, 2014, 2015), 8 players on its roster ranked in the RSCI top 25 (only three previous rosters had as many as 7 - 2008, 2009, 2010), and five players on its roster ranked in the RSCI top 15. The only other Duke team since the RSCI began that had five such players was the 2004 Final Four team. Among the five Duke teams that had four such players are two national championship teams (2001 and 2015), and a team that both started and finished the regular season #1 (2006), as well as two less accomplished teams (2003 and 2009).
Digging deeper (no pun intended), with the caveat of a small sample size, having a ton of top 35 players doesn't necessarily correlate to post-season success, but it doesn't seem to hurt. Our seven previous teams with 8 or more top 35 guys include Natties in 2010 and 2015, as well as a Final Four in 2004, but also include 2003, 2008, 2009, and 2014. Considering the way Coach K tends to tighten his rotation, perhaps having so many players doesn’t always help. Similarly, having 7 or more top 25 guys didn't propel the 2008 or 2009 teams to post-season success, though it seemed to help the 2010 team, probably because that team only had two top 15 players.
There's no clear answer here. Ultimately, having the deepest pool of both top-tier talent and quality depth can't be a bad thing.
One thing you'd think would correlate to depth would be the number of blowout wins, since presumably a deep team's garbage time lineup would be far superior to the opponent's garbage time lineup, and/or more able to hold its own against an opponent who keeps its better players in. So I included columns for 30+ point wins and 20+ point wins. But the depth/blowout theory didn’t pan out.
The only pattern I could find was the obvious one that teams with lots of blowout wins tend to have more successful seasons. Teams with the most blowout wins include all four of our Final Four teams in the period: Our top five, in order are: 2001 (20), 2002 (18), 2010 (17), 2015 (13), 2004 (13), 2011 (13); our bottom five, in reverse order, are: 2012 (6), 2007 (7), 2003 (7), 2005 (7), 2016 (8).
Something to watch for -- if the 2016-17 team is blowing the doors off its opponents, it may bode well for the post-season. It will also mean more minutes for the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th men in the rotation, encouraging some to argue that Coach K has expanded his rotation, so hopefully we'll have that to look forward to.
WILL DUKE MISS TRADITIONAL POINT GUARD PLAY?
Being a point guard means a lot of things: getting the ball across halfcourt; initiating the offensive halfcourt set; defending the other team's lead guard. But what first pops into most people's minds when they hear the phrase "point guard" is a playmaker who slices through the opponent's defense and creates open shots for his teammates. By that latter definition, clearly there's no such player on Duke's current roster. It's the one "weakness" we appear to have. Or is it?
Many have pointed out that all five of our national championship teams have had a "true" point guard -- Bobby Hurley in 1991 and 1992; Jason Williams/Chris Duhon in 2001; Jon Scheyer in 2010; and Tyus Jones in 2015. (Though I feel compelled to mention that while Jon Scheyer did a masterful job running the point in 2010, he was really a combo guard (as was Jason Williams), and that in the preseason of 2009-10, the fact that we didn't have a "true" point guard was a topic of much discussion.)
Thing is, while those five national champions all had good point guards, so did a lot of less successful Duke teams. With only five cherry-picked data points, is point guard play what really made those teams special?
Rather than debate who in Duke's past was a "true" point guard, I’ve tried to get a bigger picture by looking at Duke teams with an All-ACC lead guard. Here's the list:
All-ACC Duke PGs
1983 (J Dawkins – 2nd team)
1987 (Amaker – 2nd)
1991 (Hurley – 3rd)
1992 (Hurley – 2nd)
1993 (Hurley – 1st)
1996 (Collins – 2nd OR Capel – 3rd)
1997 (Wojciechowski – 2nd)
1998 (Wojciechowski – 3rd)
1999 (Avery – 2nd)
2000 (J Williams – 3rd)
2001 (JWilliams – 1st)
2003 (Duhon – 3rd)
2004 (Duhon – 1st)
2005 (Ewing – 3rd)
2008 (Paulus – 3rd)
2010 (Scheyer – 1st)
2011 (N Smith – 1st)
2013 (Cook – 3rd)
2015 (T Jones – 3rd)
Duke has had 19 seasons with an All-ACC lead guard. All five national champions are on the list, but only two other Final Fours, meaning 7 of the 19 seasons ended in the last weekend of the Tournament (37%). But five of those seasons (26%) ended before the first weekend of the Tournament. Another five ended in the Sweet 16.
Maybe we're talking about a necessary but not sufficient situation, or maybe Duke's five championship teams shared some other, more compelling characteristic and the point guard situation was closer to coincidence.
For example, if we look at a list of all Duke teams (even before Coach K) that had the ACC player of the year, here's the list:
ACC POY
1963 – Heyman
1964 – Mullins
1966 – Vacendak
1979 – Gminski
1988 – Ferry
1989 – Ferry
1992 – Laettner
1994 – G Hill
1999 – Brand
2000 – Carrawell
2001 – Battier*
2005 – Redick
2006 – Redick
2011 – N Smith
2015 – Okafor
While it's true this award is often influenced by which team is the ACC’s best, it's also true that 10 of Duke's 16 Final Four teams are represented (and in at least two of the remaining six, a Duke player finished 2nd in the ACC POY voting (1986 and 2010); other Duke Final Fours not represented: 1978, 1990, 1991, and 2004). There’s also a relative lack of false negatives. Ten of the 15 teams represented above made the Final Four (67%), a much stronger percentage than the All-ACC PG list above.
We may not have a true point guard, but we do have the preseason ACC player of the year Grayson Allen. Personally, I like the precedent.
Let’s also look at depth of top talent. Here’s a list of Duke teams under Coach K with three or more All-ACC players on the roster:
3+ All-ACC Players
1990 (P Henderson; Laettner; Abdelnaby)
1991 (Laettner; T Hill; Hurley)
1992 (Laettner; G Hill; Hurley; T Hill)
1993 (G Hill; Hurley; T Hill)
1994 (G Hill; Parks; Lang)
1996 (Collins; Capel; Price)
1998 (Langdon; McLeod; Wojo)
1999 (Brand; Langdon; Avery; Battier; Carrawell)
2000 (Battier; Carrawell; J Williams)
2001 (Battier; J Williams; James)
2002 (J Williams; Boozer; Dunleavy)
2003 (D Jones; Duhon; Redick)
2004 (Duhon; Redick; S Williams; Deng)
2005 (Redick; S Williams; Ewing)
2008 (Nelson; Paulus; Singler)
2010 (Scheyer; Singler; Smith)
2012 (Rivers; Curry; Mas Plumlee)
2013 (Mas Plumlee; Curry; Cook)
2015 (Okafor; Cook; T Jones)
All five national champions are on this list, too. Nine of Coach K's 12 Final Fours (the missing: 1986, 1988, and 1989). That's 47% (9 of 19), with false positives (1993, 1996, 2008, 2012), but it still appears stronger than the All-ACC PG list. With All-ACC contenders Grayson Allen, Jayson Tatum, Amile Jefferson, and possibly Harry Giles and/or Luke Kennard (maybe even Marques Bolden, if he can get healthy, get enough minutes, and have his way with ACC-sized big men the way he did against smaller high school and Division II exhibition competition), Duke has a good shot to add another entry to this list.
Precedent aside, a "true" point guard who presumably makes his teammates better and creates open shots is important to having a strong offense. Is it necessary? Pomeroy's offensive efficiency numbers might help us.
In the past eight seasons, we've had our offense run by combo guards in six of them. The only two that played "true" point guards were the 2013 and 2015. Both those teams were top-tier offenses (Pomeroy's #4 nationally in 2013 and #3 nationally in 2015). How'd the other six teams do?
Duke's Pomeroy offensive efficiency rank
2009: #7
2010: #1
2011: #6
2012: #8
2014: #1
2016: #4
All top 8 nationally. For what it's worth (not much), the average of the two "true PG" years was #3.5 and the average in the six other years was #4.5. A small difference, probably explainable by sample size, and even if not, pretty much irrelevant. If we have the #5 offense in the country this year instead of #4, it likely won't cost us any games. Moreover, Pomeroy's preseason rankings (also not worth all that much) rates Duke as the nation's #1 offense. Personally, I'm not worried about Duke's lack of a true point guard this season.
It's also worth mentioning that the best offense in the NBA, the Golden State Warriors, don't play a true PG, either. They make up for it by having multiple players who can handle the ball, having several amazing scorers, and by having a big man (Draymond Green) who is a really good passer. I'm not saying Grayson Allen, Jayson Tatum, and Luke Kennard are even in the same stratosphere as Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Klay Thompson, but as college equivalents they may not be that far off. And the way Amile Jefferson was passing in the Blue/White and exhibitions, the Draymond comparison might not be so crazy, either.
WHAT ABOUT DUKE'S DEFENSE?
Health permitting, Duke will have four freshmen in its rotation. Conventional wisdom suggests that playing a lot of freshmen precludes a strong defense, especially at Duke with Coach K's complicated man-to-man schemes. How true is that maxim?
Year Def rank DefEff frosh in top 7 seniors in top 7
2002 1 84.7 2 0**
2003 16 88.6 2 2
2004 3 84.4 1 1
2005 2 85.0 1 1**
2006 18 88.7 2 4
2007 5 85.5 3 0
2008 7 86.4 2 1
2009 31 90.2 0 2
2010 5 84.5 1 3
2011 11 87.8 0 2
2012 78 95.2 1 1**
2013 26 90.4 1 3
2014 87 99.9 1 2
2015 12 90.0 3 1
2016 86 98.9 3.5* 1.5*
(* -- in 2016, senior Amile Jefferson only played 9 games, while freshman Chase Jeter was sort of in the rotation after Amile went down)
(** - the top-ranked defensive team in 2002 had four juniors, but the horrid defenders from 2012 did as well. The 2005 team had five juniors.)
Even discounting 2002, the 2007, 2008, and 2015 freshman-heavy defenses performed better than the senior-laden 2006, 2009, and 2013 defenses. The senior-dominated 2010 team played great on defense, and the freshman-filled 2016 team didn't, but those two data points aren't nearly enough to confirm the conventional wisdom.
The data seems to shows teams with multiple freshmen in the rotation can play good defense. The key must be having the right freshmen. Do we have that this year? I don't know. But early returns are that Frank Jackson and Marques Bolden have the potential to be very good defensive players. The scouting report on Harry Giles says the same. The jury's still out on Jayson Tatum, but he has good size for a small forward. And our two seniors are both outstanding defenders and communicators. I'd say our chances seem pretty good.
One final note on this topic, the 2015 national champions finished #12 in defensive efficiency but were much worse for much of the season before peaking defensively in the NCAA Tournament. That team took almost the whole season to gel on the defensive end. It's only one data point, but with all our freshmen we may have to be patient with this year's team when it comes to defense. Hopefully they'll come together sooner rather than later.
HOW FAST WILL DUKE GO?
Every year we hear about how Duke could press on defense and run on offense, playing at a pace faster than the speed of light. Most year's it doesn't pan out. This season we certainly have the athletes and the depth to do it. But in the limited data of the exhibition games, our pace (76.8 possessions per game) was only middle-of-the-pack compared to past seasons exhibition performance. The jury's still out on this one.
WILL DUKE HIT ITS FREE THROWS?
Duke usually gets to the line a lot, but every fan dreads missed free throws. How will this year's team fare in that category? Below is how we've done the past ten seasons:
Year FT % national rank
2016 72.3 84
2015 69.6 148
2014 72.9 71
2013 73.9 39
2012 70.1 132
2011 75.3 25
2010 75.9 8
2009 72.8 55
2008 69.7 148
2007 68.9 175
Last season Duke shot 72.3% from the charity stripe despite a whopping 38% of our free throws coming from Brandon Ingram (68.2%) and Marshall Plumlee (57.5%), who combined to shoot only 63.2% from the line. We made up for that by having two players who took 41.4% of our free throws hitting 85.2%. Both Brandon and Marshall are gone this season, but both Grayson Allen and Luke Kennard are back.
So is Amile Jefferson, who hit only 55.4% of his free throws last season and only 54.4% in his career. His stroke looks a little better this season, but in the exhibitions only managed 60%. Chase Jeter, on the other hand, hit only 54.1% of his freebies last season but drained 84.6% in the exhibitions and looked confident doing it. Time will tell whether Chase's free throw shooting last season was an aberration or this year will quickly revert to the mean. As for the freshmen, Frank Jackson hit 71.4% of his free throws in the exhibitions, looking a little better than Derryck Thornton, who last season sank just 69% of his. I found stats that showed Jayson Tatum made 84% of his free throws his sophomore year of high school, and he made 83% of his free throws at the Blue/White game, a hopeful sign. The free throw prospects of Marques Bolden (43% in the one exhibition game he played) and Javin DeLaurier (27% in the two exhibition games) are less hopeful. I have no idea how Harry Giles will fare in this regard.
Overall, with Grayson, Jayson, and Luke taking most of our free throws, we have a chance to be really good in this area.
WILL DUKE HAVE THE CHEMISTRY OF A CHAMPION?
"Chemistry" is an elusive concept in sports, especially in non-professional sports. Despite it being difficult to define, or even identify, it's something we worry about every season. This season, the team seems to have bonded well, they seem to like each other, and we have two gregarious senior leaders to keep the ship afloat. In that sense, everything should be great.
One thing I want to see is on-court chemistry. Specifically, how well can Grayson Allen and Jayson Tatum co-exist on a court with only one basketball? They're both high usage players, both seem to want to use the same area of the court, and (despite Grayson leading Duke in assists last season) both seem to put their head down once they start moving toward the basket. Granted, I've only seen Jayson in the Blue/White game, but it's a question worth pursuing. Can Duke's system support two high usage scorers?
I don't see why not. Just last season, Grayson and Brandon Ingram combined for 38.9 ppg, and did it in similar fashion. For completeness sake, though, here are the top 10 (really 11) seasons in which Duke had two high volume scorers:
1. 2006: JJ Redick (26.8)/Shelden Williams (18.8) combined for 45.6 ppg (obviously they did if from different areas of the court);
2. 2001: Jason Williams (21.6)/Shane Battier (19.9) - 41.5 ppg;
3. 2002: Jason Williams (21.3)/Carlos Boozer (18.2) - 39.5 ppg, also different areas of the court (Mike Dunleavy also scored 17.3 ppg);
4. 2016: Grayson Allen (21.6)/Brandon Ingram (17.3) - 38.9 ppg;
5. 2011: Nolan Smith (20.6)/Kyle Singler (16.9) - 37.5 ppg;
6. 1986: Johnny Dawkins (20.2)/Mark Alarie (17.2) - 37.4 ppg;
7. 2005: JJ Redick (21.8)/Shelden Williams (15.5) - 37.3 ppg (Daniel Ewing also scored 15.3 ppg);
8. 1984: Johnny Dawkins (19.4)/Mark Alarie (17.5) - 37.0 ppg;
9. 2010: Jon Scheyer (18.2)/Kyle Singler (17.7) - 35.9 ppg (Nolan Smith also scored 17.4 ppg);
10t. 2014: Jabari Parker (19.1)/Rodney Hood (16.1) - 35.2 ppg;
10t. 1988: Danny Ferry (19.1)/Kevin Strickland (16.1) - 35.2 ppg;
As long as Grayson and Jayson don't deliberately shut each other out (something I have no reason to believe might happen), I think we'll be OK in this area.
One last thought that may or may not belong in this category is Grayson's temper/frustration level. We saw frustration get the better of him last season with the tripping incidents. And already this season in the Blue/White and exhibition games. The way he took out Amile in the Blue/White game was borderline alarming. I don't think anybody wants him to bury his competitiveness or the way he goes 110%, every play. I think we'd all like him to use his head and avoid international incidents.
EXPECTATIONS VS. DISAPPOINTMENT
With a team this talented and a coach this accomplished, it's easy to say anything short of a national title will be a disappointment. On two levels, I hope this mindset doesn't become dominant.
As far as the players go, astronomical expectations can put a great deal of pressure on a very young team. That pressure can crack team morale and chemistry and diminish performance on the court. As I mentioned, I'm particularly concerned about how Grayson deals with the pressure. Fortunately, Coach K is quite used to managing expectations and we have two affable senior captains to help keep their teammates calm and centered.
With the fans, a different story. We have no coach or senior leaders to calm us. I urge you all to enjoy the ride. Don't heap unreasonable (or even reasonable) expectations on the players and don't view every loss (there undoubtedly will be a few) as a personal betrayal. Cherish each accomplishment; they all matter. Hopefully by April, we'll have celebrated a regular season ACC championship, an ACC tournament championship, a Final Four, and a national championship. But if we don't collect them all, please take it in stride.
Even as the favorite to win the title, the odds are overwhelming against any one team winning the national championship. There's soooo much luck involved, good and bad. Speaking only for myself, if we don't get there, I'm still going to celebrate the journey. It's going to be a good season, win or lose at the end.
Go Duke!
It begins against Marist (#242 in preseason Pomeroy) and ends against Appalachian State (#298). Between those cupcakes, we play two top 50 teams (#3 Kansas and either #28 Cincinnati OR #43 Rhode Island), two top 100 teams (#98 Penn State and #92 William and Mary), and a top 200 team (#187 Grand Canyon). Not particularly inspiring, but a couple of tests. Next Tuesday's game against Kansas could be a highlight game nationally. On to the Phase:
HEALTH!!!
Some believe health shouldn't always be phase posts’ first topic. Some believe it shouldn't be a phase topic at all. But let's face it, the season hasn't even started and we already have three Vigil threads. Plus two of our three captains have been banged up and missed time in the public practices and exhibition games (and the one captain who didn't miss time is coming off a season-long injury). Admittedly there's not a lot to discuss here that hasn't already been said, but whether Duke can get and stay healthy is probably the biggest question of the 2016-17 season.
I don't have insights into the injuries to Harry Giles, Jayson Tatum, and Marques Bolden. From what I can gather, Jayson should be back soon, Harry should ease in probably in December, and Marques is out indefinitely (which appears to mean different things to different people at different times). Anyone with better knowledge is encouraged to chime in.
HOW GOOD IS DUKE?
Assuming we get and stay healthy, let’s tackle the overarching prospects for the team. How good is Duke, really? I'll start with the famous John Gasaway article (https://johngasaway.com/2015/10/19/the-category-5-roster/) about "Category 5" rosters. If you haven't read the article, Gasaway combines a point system to quantify recruiting ranking and measures experience by a metric he calls "returning possession-minutes." If your team has 25 recruting points AND 40 RPMs, then you're a Category 5 roster.
There have only been five Category 5 rosters in the one-and-done era (none last season). Two won the national championship (including Duke in 2015), two others made the Final Four, and the last two made the Elite Eight. Long story short, Duke in 2016-17 is Category 5 roster number six.
By my calculation, our team this year has more than 36 recruiting points (second best in college basketball since 2002, after 2013-14 UK), and over 60 RPMs, a little better than Kentucky's almost-undefeated 2014-15 team (60 points exactly). We're going to be pretty good this year.
Pollsters agree. Duke is the preseason #1 team, the 7th time in Coach K's Duke career with that honor. Also our 4th straight year in the preseason top 5 (15th overall under Coach K) and our 9th straight year in the preseason top 10 (27th overall under Coach K).
Of our previous six preseason #1 teams, four (67%) ended the regular season ranked #1 (the exceptions: 2011, ending the regular season #5, and 1989, ending #9). Three of the six made the Final Four, including the 1992 national champions.
Our eight additional pre-season top five teams included two national champions and two other Final Four teams. Adding Duke's five pre-season #6 teams, in those 20 seasons we had four of our five national championships (the exception: 2010, ranked #9 in the pre-season AP) and nine of our 12 Final Fours under Coach K (all but 2010, 1990, and 1988).
HOW DEEP IS DUKE?
Duke rarely carries a full roster, but this season we have 13 recruited scholarship players. Will Coach K make full use of that depth, or will he retreat to his usual 7 or 8 man rotations?
The short answer is he's never gone beyond an 8-man rotation (in important games). The existential answer asks what is a rotation and what does it mean to be in it. Perhaps a more nuanced answer is there's depth and then there's depth.
Across the "RSCI era," here’s how many Duke players came out of high school in the Top 15, Top 25, and/or Top 35.
Year Top 15 Top 25 Top 35 30+ pt wins 20+ pt wins* Reg Season AP rk NCAAT Notes
2000 3 5 6 9 12 #1 S16 N James top 25? C Carrawell top 35?
2001 4 6 7 12 20 #1 Champ N James top 25?
2002 3 4 6 9 18 #1 S16 tfr in D Jones better than #98
2003 4 6 8 2 7 #7 S16 tfr in D Jones better than #98
2004 5 6 8 5 13 #6 F4 top 35 M Thompson tfr out in Dec.
2005 3 5 6 6 7 #3 S16
2006 4 6 6 4 9 #1 S16
2007 3 6 7 1 7 unr r64
2008 3 7 9 4 10 #9 r32
2009 4 7 8 5 10 #6 S16
2010 2 7 8 7 17 #3 Champ A Dawkins as top 25?
2011 3 6 7 6 13 #5 S16 top 15 K Irving injured most of season; A Dawkins as top 25? tfr in S Curry better than unr
2012 2 4 7 3 6 #8 r64 A Dawkins as top 25? tfr in S Curry better than unranked
2013 2 4 6 3 10 #6 E8 tfr in S Curry better than unranked
2014 2 4 9 5 10 #8 r64 A Dawkins as top 25?
2015 4 6 9 5 13 #4 Champ top 15 R Sulaimon left team end of Jan.; top 35 S Ojeleye transferred out in Dec.
2016 3 6 7 4 8 #19 S16 top 25 A Jefferson injured most of season
2017 5 8 10
(* - all 20+ point wins, including 30+ point wins)
If everyone is healthy, this suggests this year's Duke team has the most quality depth of any Duke team since the RSCI was invented. (Though the 1998 and 1999 teams, just before the RSCI era began, were really deep teams for which we don't have data -- those teams may have met or even exceeded the 2017 team's quality depth.) Duke has 10 players on its roster ranked in the RSCI top 35 (only three previous rosters had as many as 9 - 2008, 2014, 2015), 8 players on its roster ranked in the RSCI top 25 (only three previous rosters had as many as 7 - 2008, 2009, 2010), and five players on its roster ranked in the RSCI top 15. The only other Duke team since the RSCI began that had five such players was the 2004 Final Four team. Among the five Duke teams that had four such players are two national championship teams (2001 and 2015), and a team that both started and finished the regular season #1 (2006), as well as two less accomplished teams (2003 and 2009).
Digging deeper (no pun intended), with the caveat of a small sample size, having a ton of top 35 players doesn't necessarily correlate to post-season success, but it doesn't seem to hurt. Our seven previous teams with 8 or more top 35 guys include Natties in 2010 and 2015, as well as a Final Four in 2004, but also include 2003, 2008, 2009, and 2014. Considering the way Coach K tends to tighten his rotation, perhaps having so many players doesn’t always help. Similarly, having 7 or more top 25 guys didn't propel the 2008 or 2009 teams to post-season success, though it seemed to help the 2010 team, probably because that team only had two top 15 players.
There's no clear answer here. Ultimately, having the deepest pool of both top-tier talent and quality depth can't be a bad thing.
One thing you'd think would correlate to depth would be the number of blowout wins, since presumably a deep team's garbage time lineup would be far superior to the opponent's garbage time lineup, and/or more able to hold its own against an opponent who keeps its better players in. So I included columns for 30+ point wins and 20+ point wins. But the depth/blowout theory didn’t pan out.
The only pattern I could find was the obvious one that teams with lots of blowout wins tend to have more successful seasons. Teams with the most blowout wins include all four of our Final Four teams in the period: Our top five, in order are: 2001 (20), 2002 (18), 2010 (17), 2015 (13), 2004 (13), 2011 (13); our bottom five, in reverse order, are: 2012 (6), 2007 (7), 2003 (7), 2005 (7), 2016 (8).
Something to watch for -- if the 2016-17 team is blowing the doors off its opponents, it may bode well for the post-season. It will also mean more minutes for the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th men in the rotation, encouraging some to argue that Coach K has expanded his rotation, so hopefully we'll have that to look forward to.
WILL DUKE MISS TRADITIONAL POINT GUARD PLAY?
Being a point guard means a lot of things: getting the ball across halfcourt; initiating the offensive halfcourt set; defending the other team's lead guard. But what first pops into most people's minds when they hear the phrase "point guard" is a playmaker who slices through the opponent's defense and creates open shots for his teammates. By that latter definition, clearly there's no such player on Duke's current roster. It's the one "weakness" we appear to have. Or is it?
Many have pointed out that all five of our national championship teams have had a "true" point guard -- Bobby Hurley in 1991 and 1992; Jason Williams/Chris Duhon in 2001; Jon Scheyer in 2010; and Tyus Jones in 2015. (Though I feel compelled to mention that while Jon Scheyer did a masterful job running the point in 2010, he was really a combo guard (as was Jason Williams), and that in the preseason of 2009-10, the fact that we didn't have a "true" point guard was a topic of much discussion.)
Thing is, while those five national champions all had good point guards, so did a lot of less successful Duke teams. With only five cherry-picked data points, is point guard play what really made those teams special?
Rather than debate who in Duke's past was a "true" point guard, I’ve tried to get a bigger picture by looking at Duke teams with an All-ACC lead guard. Here's the list:
All-ACC Duke PGs
1983 (J Dawkins – 2nd team)
1987 (Amaker – 2nd)
1991 (Hurley – 3rd)
1992 (Hurley – 2nd)
1993 (Hurley – 1st)
1996 (Collins – 2nd OR Capel – 3rd)
1997 (Wojciechowski – 2nd)
1998 (Wojciechowski – 3rd)
1999 (Avery – 2nd)
2000 (J Williams – 3rd)
2001 (JWilliams – 1st)
2003 (Duhon – 3rd)
2004 (Duhon – 1st)
2005 (Ewing – 3rd)
2008 (Paulus – 3rd)
2010 (Scheyer – 1st)
2011 (N Smith – 1st)
2013 (Cook – 3rd)
2015 (T Jones – 3rd)
Duke has had 19 seasons with an All-ACC lead guard. All five national champions are on the list, but only two other Final Fours, meaning 7 of the 19 seasons ended in the last weekend of the Tournament (37%). But five of those seasons (26%) ended before the first weekend of the Tournament. Another five ended in the Sweet 16.
Maybe we're talking about a necessary but not sufficient situation, or maybe Duke's five championship teams shared some other, more compelling characteristic and the point guard situation was closer to coincidence.
For example, if we look at a list of all Duke teams (even before Coach K) that had the ACC player of the year, here's the list:
ACC POY
1963 – Heyman
1964 – Mullins
1966 – Vacendak
1979 – Gminski
1988 – Ferry
1989 – Ferry
1992 – Laettner
1994 – G Hill
1999 – Brand
2000 – Carrawell
2001 – Battier*
2005 – Redick
2006 – Redick
2011 – N Smith
2015 – Okafor
While it's true this award is often influenced by which team is the ACC’s best, it's also true that 10 of Duke's 16 Final Four teams are represented (and in at least two of the remaining six, a Duke player finished 2nd in the ACC POY voting (1986 and 2010); other Duke Final Fours not represented: 1978, 1990, 1991, and 2004). There’s also a relative lack of false negatives. Ten of the 15 teams represented above made the Final Four (67%), a much stronger percentage than the All-ACC PG list above.
We may not have a true point guard, but we do have the preseason ACC player of the year Grayson Allen. Personally, I like the precedent.
Let’s also look at depth of top talent. Here’s a list of Duke teams under Coach K with three or more All-ACC players on the roster:
3+ All-ACC Players
1990 (P Henderson; Laettner; Abdelnaby)
1991 (Laettner; T Hill; Hurley)
1992 (Laettner; G Hill; Hurley; T Hill)
1993 (G Hill; Hurley; T Hill)
1994 (G Hill; Parks; Lang)
1996 (Collins; Capel; Price)
1998 (Langdon; McLeod; Wojo)
1999 (Brand; Langdon; Avery; Battier; Carrawell)
2000 (Battier; Carrawell; J Williams)
2001 (Battier; J Williams; James)
2002 (J Williams; Boozer; Dunleavy)
2003 (D Jones; Duhon; Redick)
2004 (Duhon; Redick; S Williams; Deng)
2005 (Redick; S Williams; Ewing)
2008 (Nelson; Paulus; Singler)
2010 (Scheyer; Singler; Smith)
2012 (Rivers; Curry; Mas Plumlee)
2013 (Mas Plumlee; Curry; Cook)
2015 (Okafor; Cook; T Jones)
All five national champions are on this list, too. Nine of Coach K's 12 Final Fours (the missing: 1986, 1988, and 1989). That's 47% (9 of 19), with false positives (1993, 1996, 2008, 2012), but it still appears stronger than the All-ACC PG list. With All-ACC contenders Grayson Allen, Jayson Tatum, Amile Jefferson, and possibly Harry Giles and/or Luke Kennard (maybe even Marques Bolden, if he can get healthy, get enough minutes, and have his way with ACC-sized big men the way he did against smaller high school and Division II exhibition competition), Duke has a good shot to add another entry to this list.
Precedent aside, a "true" point guard who presumably makes his teammates better and creates open shots is important to having a strong offense. Is it necessary? Pomeroy's offensive efficiency numbers might help us.
In the past eight seasons, we've had our offense run by combo guards in six of them. The only two that played "true" point guards were the 2013 and 2015. Both those teams were top-tier offenses (Pomeroy's #4 nationally in 2013 and #3 nationally in 2015). How'd the other six teams do?
Duke's Pomeroy offensive efficiency rank
2009: #7
2010: #1
2011: #6
2012: #8
2014: #1
2016: #4
All top 8 nationally. For what it's worth (not much), the average of the two "true PG" years was #3.5 and the average in the six other years was #4.5. A small difference, probably explainable by sample size, and even if not, pretty much irrelevant. If we have the #5 offense in the country this year instead of #4, it likely won't cost us any games. Moreover, Pomeroy's preseason rankings (also not worth all that much) rates Duke as the nation's #1 offense. Personally, I'm not worried about Duke's lack of a true point guard this season.
It's also worth mentioning that the best offense in the NBA, the Golden State Warriors, don't play a true PG, either. They make up for it by having multiple players who can handle the ball, having several amazing scorers, and by having a big man (Draymond Green) who is a really good passer. I'm not saying Grayson Allen, Jayson Tatum, and Luke Kennard are even in the same stratosphere as Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Klay Thompson, but as college equivalents they may not be that far off. And the way Amile Jefferson was passing in the Blue/White and exhibitions, the Draymond comparison might not be so crazy, either.
WHAT ABOUT DUKE'S DEFENSE?
Health permitting, Duke will have four freshmen in its rotation. Conventional wisdom suggests that playing a lot of freshmen precludes a strong defense, especially at Duke with Coach K's complicated man-to-man schemes. How true is that maxim?
Year Def rank DefEff frosh in top 7 seniors in top 7
2002 1 84.7 2 0**
2003 16 88.6 2 2
2004 3 84.4 1 1
2005 2 85.0 1 1**
2006 18 88.7 2 4
2007 5 85.5 3 0
2008 7 86.4 2 1
2009 31 90.2 0 2
2010 5 84.5 1 3
2011 11 87.8 0 2
2012 78 95.2 1 1**
2013 26 90.4 1 3
2014 87 99.9 1 2
2015 12 90.0 3 1
2016 86 98.9 3.5* 1.5*
(* -- in 2016, senior Amile Jefferson only played 9 games, while freshman Chase Jeter was sort of in the rotation after Amile went down)
(** - the top-ranked defensive team in 2002 had four juniors, but the horrid defenders from 2012 did as well. The 2005 team had five juniors.)
Even discounting 2002, the 2007, 2008, and 2015 freshman-heavy defenses performed better than the senior-laden 2006, 2009, and 2013 defenses. The senior-dominated 2010 team played great on defense, and the freshman-filled 2016 team didn't, but those two data points aren't nearly enough to confirm the conventional wisdom.
The data seems to shows teams with multiple freshmen in the rotation can play good defense. The key must be having the right freshmen. Do we have that this year? I don't know. But early returns are that Frank Jackson and Marques Bolden have the potential to be very good defensive players. The scouting report on Harry Giles says the same. The jury's still out on Jayson Tatum, but he has good size for a small forward. And our two seniors are both outstanding defenders and communicators. I'd say our chances seem pretty good.
One final note on this topic, the 2015 national champions finished #12 in defensive efficiency but were much worse for much of the season before peaking defensively in the NCAA Tournament. That team took almost the whole season to gel on the defensive end. It's only one data point, but with all our freshmen we may have to be patient with this year's team when it comes to defense. Hopefully they'll come together sooner rather than later.
HOW FAST WILL DUKE GO?
Every year we hear about how Duke could press on defense and run on offense, playing at a pace faster than the speed of light. Most year's it doesn't pan out. This season we certainly have the athletes and the depth to do it. But in the limited data of the exhibition games, our pace (76.8 possessions per game) was only middle-of-the-pack compared to past seasons exhibition performance. The jury's still out on this one.
WILL DUKE HIT ITS FREE THROWS?
Duke usually gets to the line a lot, but every fan dreads missed free throws. How will this year's team fare in that category? Below is how we've done the past ten seasons:
Year FT % national rank
2016 72.3 84
2015 69.6 148
2014 72.9 71
2013 73.9 39
2012 70.1 132
2011 75.3 25
2010 75.9 8
2009 72.8 55
2008 69.7 148
2007 68.9 175
Last season Duke shot 72.3% from the charity stripe despite a whopping 38% of our free throws coming from Brandon Ingram (68.2%) and Marshall Plumlee (57.5%), who combined to shoot only 63.2% from the line. We made up for that by having two players who took 41.4% of our free throws hitting 85.2%. Both Brandon and Marshall are gone this season, but both Grayson Allen and Luke Kennard are back.
So is Amile Jefferson, who hit only 55.4% of his free throws last season and only 54.4% in his career. His stroke looks a little better this season, but in the exhibitions only managed 60%. Chase Jeter, on the other hand, hit only 54.1% of his freebies last season but drained 84.6% in the exhibitions and looked confident doing it. Time will tell whether Chase's free throw shooting last season was an aberration or this year will quickly revert to the mean. As for the freshmen, Frank Jackson hit 71.4% of his free throws in the exhibitions, looking a little better than Derryck Thornton, who last season sank just 69% of his. I found stats that showed Jayson Tatum made 84% of his free throws his sophomore year of high school, and he made 83% of his free throws at the Blue/White game, a hopeful sign. The free throw prospects of Marques Bolden (43% in the one exhibition game he played) and Javin DeLaurier (27% in the two exhibition games) are less hopeful. I have no idea how Harry Giles will fare in this regard.
Overall, with Grayson, Jayson, and Luke taking most of our free throws, we have a chance to be really good in this area.
WILL DUKE HAVE THE CHEMISTRY OF A CHAMPION?
"Chemistry" is an elusive concept in sports, especially in non-professional sports. Despite it being difficult to define, or even identify, it's something we worry about every season. This season, the team seems to have bonded well, they seem to like each other, and we have two gregarious senior leaders to keep the ship afloat. In that sense, everything should be great.
One thing I want to see is on-court chemistry. Specifically, how well can Grayson Allen and Jayson Tatum co-exist on a court with only one basketball? They're both high usage players, both seem to want to use the same area of the court, and (despite Grayson leading Duke in assists last season) both seem to put their head down once they start moving toward the basket. Granted, I've only seen Jayson in the Blue/White game, but it's a question worth pursuing. Can Duke's system support two high usage scorers?
I don't see why not. Just last season, Grayson and Brandon Ingram combined for 38.9 ppg, and did it in similar fashion. For completeness sake, though, here are the top 10 (really 11) seasons in which Duke had two high volume scorers:
1. 2006: JJ Redick (26.8)/Shelden Williams (18.8) combined for 45.6 ppg (obviously they did if from different areas of the court);
2. 2001: Jason Williams (21.6)/Shane Battier (19.9) - 41.5 ppg;
3. 2002: Jason Williams (21.3)/Carlos Boozer (18.2) - 39.5 ppg, also different areas of the court (Mike Dunleavy also scored 17.3 ppg);
4. 2016: Grayson Allen (21.6)/Brandon Ingram (17.3) - 38.9 ppg;
5. 2011: Nolan Smith (20.6)/Kyle Singler (16.9) - 37.5 ppg;
6. 1986: Johnny Dawkins (20.2)/Mark Alarie (17.2) - 37.4 ppg;
7. 2005: JJ Redick (21.8)/Shelden Williams (15.5) - 37.3 ppg (Daniel Ewing also scored 15.3 ppg);
8. 1984: Johnny Dawkins (19.4)/Mark Alarie (17.5) - 37.0 ppg;
9. 2010: Jon Scheyer (18.2)/Kyle Singler (17.7) - 35.9 ppg (Nolan Smith also scored 17.4 ppg);
10t. 2014: Jabari Parker (19.1)/Rodney Hood (16.1) - 35.2 ppg;
10t. 1988: Danny Ferry (19.1)/Kevin Strickland (16.1) - 35.2 ppg;
As long as Grayson and Jayson don't deliberately shut each other out (something I have no reason to believe might happen), I think we'll be OK in this area.
One last thought that may or may not belong in this category is Grayson's temper/frustration level. We saw frustration get the better of him last season with the tripping incidents. And already this season in the Blue/White and exhibition games. The way he took out Amile in the Blue/White game was borderline alarming. I don't think anybody wants him to bury his competitiveness or the way he goes 110%, every play. I think we'd all like him to use his head and avoid international incidents.
EXPECTATIONS VS. DISAPPOINTMENT
With a team this talented and a coach this accomplished, it's easy to say anything short of a national title will be a disappointment. On two levels, I hope this mindset doesn't become dominant.
As far as the players go, astronomical expectations can put a great deal of pressure on a very young team. That pressure can crack team morale and chemistry and diminish performance on the court. As I mentioned, I'm particularly concerned about how Grayson deals with the pressure. Fortunately, Coach K is quite used to managing expectations and we have two affable senior captains to help keep their teammates calm and centered.
With the fans, a different story. We have no coach or senior leaders to calm us. I urge you all to enjoy the ride. Don't heap unreasonable (or even reasonable) expectations on the players and don't view every loss (there undoubtedly will be a few) as a personal betrayal. Cherish each accomplishment; they all matter. Hopefully by April, we'll have celebrated a regular season ACC championship, an ACC tournament championship, a Final Four, and a national championship. But if we don't collect them all, please take it in stride.
Even as the favorite to win the title, the odds are overwhelming against any one team winning the national championship. There's soooo much luck involved, good and bad. Speaking only for myself, if we don't get there, I'm still going to celebrate the journey. It's going to be a good season, win or lose at the end.
Go Duke!