DBR Podcast #158 - Tre returns and we dive into the mailbag

[JasonEvans]

https://soundcloud.com/dbrpodcast/dbr-podcast-episode-158-tre-is-coming-back

Tre Jones has decided to return for his sophomore season at Duke and the guys open the mailbag to talk one-and-done and their favorite Duke players of the 21st century so far.

0:00 Welcome back to the offseason. The national championship game went late.
2:30 Tre Jones returns! What does it mean for Duke in 2020?
18:00 We open the mailbag, but not before greetings from Byrd Campbell!
19:20 From listener David, how much did luck play into the end of Duke's season? Jason takes it in a different direction and dissects Virginia's run to the title.
30:35 Next mailbag question, who are our favorite Duke players of the 21st century, picking from only from those players who played at least three seasons for Duke? We draft teams and compare. How did we do?
42:30 Would Zion have been our first pick if we could have picked any player?
46:50 Last mailbag question today, what are our thoughts on the one-and-done approach? How does it affect player development?
59:45 Goodbye from us and the Duke band!

[JasonEvans]

So, if you want to talk about it... after a mailbag request we did a draft of the best Dukies of the 21st century (so far) but only guys who were in uniform at least 3 seasons at Duke (no OAD, no Dahntay, no Hood, no Kennard). The draft order went Donald, Sam, Jason (and we did not snake, which is totally unfair to me!!). Anyway, here are the teams we came up with:


Donald: Shane Battier, Shelden Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Nolan Smith, Amile Jefferson
Sam: JWill, Kyle Singler, Mason Plumlee, Chris Duhon, Grayson Allen
Jason: JJ Redick, Carlos Boozer, John Scheyer, Gerald Henderson, Zoubeard

Any thoughts?

-Jason "I can't believe Quinn, Ewing, and Seth did not get drafted but Duke has had a lot of great wings and I needed a big at the end. I probably should have taken Ryan Kelly or Miles P instead of Zoub... I dunno" Evans

[UrinalCake]

I have to push back a bit on Jason's definition of "luck" as it pertains to UVA's run. Yes they were very fortunate to pull off those wins when they were behind so late in the games. But give them credit for what they did as well. In the Purdue game, their point guard could have just heaved up a prayer but instead had the presence of mind to see Diakite down the court and get the ball to him. Then Diakite had to actually hit the shot, which wasn't a given. Against Auburn, Guy had to hit the big three with 7 seconds left. They were "lucky" that he got fouled on the final possession, but he stepped up and hit those huge free throws. If Duke had been able to hit free throws, we wouldn't have had to rely on our opponents missing point blank shots. Having your opponent choke like that is way more "luck" in my opinion than UVA making plays and hitting shots.

Put another way, would you call it "luck" that Barrett got the offensive rebound and putback off a missed free throw in the UCF game? Or was it luck when Gerald Henderson went coast to coast against Belmont to preserve a one point win? I agree that Duke's injury luck was poor this year, that played a bigger role in hindering our team's development than many realize. But if you were to tell any non-Duke fan that we were unlucky in this tournament, they would probably laugh in your face.

Thanks as always for the pod, looking forward to the summer updates and then doing it all again next season!

[Truth&Justise]

Thank you all for the podcasts this season. Definitely makes the working day much more enjoyable!




Donald: Shane Battier, Shelden Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Nolan Smith, Amile Jefferson
Sam: JWill, Kyle Singler, Mason Plumlee, Chris Duhon, Grayson Allen
Jason: JJ Redick, Carlos Boozer, John Scheyer, Gerald Henderson, Zoubeard

Any thoughts?

-Jason "I can't believe Quinn, Ewing, and Seth did not get drafted but Duke has had a lot of great wings and I needed a big at the end. I probably should have taken Ryan Kelly or Miles P instead of Zoub... I dunno" Evans

It's like picking among your children, I love them all.

Donald's team has a lot of size, but playing Shelden & Amile together will cramp the spacing on offense. That team will be nasty defensively, but Nolan is the only real ball handler, meaning there will be a lot of pressure on him to create scoring opportunities. If Donald had taken a guard/wing with his last pick instead of going with Amile, this team might be unbeatable.

Sam's team is a little undersized: Grayson will have trouble guarding other small forwards like Henderson and Battier/Dunleavy. The defense looks ok but not great.

Jason's team is well balanced size-wise, but you'll also have spacing issues with Boozer and Zoubek on the court together. I think you're right that Ryan Kelly would have been the better pick--he can space on offense and provide good help defense. Carlos Boozer has enough size to hold his own down low against the other centers here.

If forced to choose I'll go with Donald's team, mostly because it is the best defensively. But I think Donald and Jason each missed an opportunity to really fortify their team with their final pick.

[thewoosh31]

Thank you all for the podcasts this season. Definitely makes the working day much more enjoyable!



It's like picking among your children, I love them all.

Donald's team has a lot of size, but playing Shelden & Amile together will cramp the spacing on offense. That team will be nasty defensively, but Nolan is the only real ball handler, meaning there will be a lot of pressure on him to create scoring opportunities. If Donald had taken a guard/wing with his last pick instead of going with Amile, this team might be unbeatable.

Sam's team is a little undersized: Grayson will have trouble guarding other small forwards like Henderson and Battier/Dunleavy. The defense looks ok but not great.

Jason's team is well balanced size-wise, but you'll also have spacing issues with Boozer and Zoubek on the court together. I think you're right that Ryan Kelly would have been the better pick--he can space on offense and provide good help defense. Carlos Boozer has enough size to hold his own down low against the other centers here.

If forced to choose I'll go with Donald's team, mostly because it is the best defensively. But I think Donald and Jason each missed an opportunity to really fortify their team with their final pick.

Are these rules considered by their Duke career only or also post-Duke career? If so, I'd probably thrown in Lance Thomas over Amile Jefferson.

[Ian]

First of all I do enjoy your podcast

But I found it a very weak discussion on the OAD topic. Just a lot of straw man like "people want the top players and keep them for 4 years and that's impossible", when literally no one who questions the OAD model on this board has ever exhibited such detachment from reality. Mischaracterizations such as "people judge OAD success solely on whether it wins a title", when the real issues are the lack of continuity in the program, lack of fan attachment to a revolving door of personnel, the energy and time of the staff being disportionately devoted to recruiting large classes every year which takes away their available time working with current players, bringing into the questions of whether Duke basketball is an extension of the mission of the university to educate or just a semi-professional basketball franchise that happens to be owned by with the Duke, these among other things, and the fact that despite all these issues, OAD also doesn't seem to be have signficantly improved Duke's tourney performance, makes one question if this should be the path the program continue to follow with abandon.

Look, I understand the OAD debate has been rehashed so many times that perhaps you guys are just tired of it. But if so just don't even bring it up, instead of addressing it in such a dismissive manner.

[JasonEvans]

Donald's team has a lot of size, but playing Shelden & Amile together will cramp the spacing on offense. That team will be nasty defensively, but Nolan is the only real ball handler, meaning there will be a lot of pressure on him to create scoring opportunities. If Donald had taken a guard/wing with his last pick instead of going with Amile, this team might be unbeatable.

Sam's team is a little undersized: Grayson will have trouble guarding other small forwards like Henderson and Battier/Dunleavy. The defense looks ok but not great.

Jason's team is well balanced size-wise, but you'll also have spacing issues with Boozer and Zoubek on the court together. I think you're right that Ryan Kelly would have been the better pick--he can space on offense and provide good help defense. Carlos Boozer has enough size to hold his own down low against the other centers here.

If forced to choose I'll go with Donald's team, mostly because it is the best defensively. But I think Donald and Jason each missed an opportunity to really fortify their team with their final pick.

I feel it worth noting that I picked 3rd in each round. This was patently unfair (should have been a snake, no one does a non-snake draft unless there are pre-existing teams that you are adding to) and I protested vociferously about it, but Sam (who had the middle pick no matter what) deemed that it would be a non-snake. I think this was because he knew I would be the savviest picker and he wanted me disadvantaged in every round ;)

Yeah, the moment I went with Zoubeard I knew I should have taken Kelly. Frankly, when I got Boozer with the 6th pick, I thought I would probably have the best team. When I was ranking all the players under consideration I had Shane, JWill, and JJ in a top tier and then Shelden and Boozer in the next tier. I saw a fairly significant drop off after those 5 so for me to get Boozer at #6 was a steal. I love me some Singler, but Boozer is the better player by a significant margin, I believe.

With my last pick I probably should have gone all-in on small ball and taken Ewing or Cook, who were the two best players on the board at that point (I believe). It would have left me really small with Henderson playing the 4, but I would have had 4 stud shooter/scorers surrounding Boozer in the post which would be three shades of unstoppable on offense. I just don't know what we would have done for rebounds unless the ball bounded into Carlos' general vicinity.

-Jason "this was a fun exercise... we may need to do some variant on it in the future" Evans

[Truth&Justise]

Yeah, the moment I went with Zoubeard I knew I should have taken Kelly.

In your defense: the idea of JJ coming off screens set by Zoubek?? Or Zoubek grabbing an offense rebound and immediately looking for an open JJ on the perimeter? Oh my.

[devilirium]

I have to push back a bit on Jason's definition of "luck" as it pertains to UVA's run. Yes they were very fortunate to pull off those wins when they were behind so late in the games. But give them credit for what they did as well. In the Purdue game, their point guard could have just heaved up a prayer but instead had the presence of mind to see Diakite down the court and get the ball to him. Then Diakite had to actually hit the shot, which wasn't a given. Against Auburn, Guy had to hit the big three with 7 seconds left. They were "lucky" that he got fouled on the final possession, but he stepped up and hit those huge free throws. If Duke had been able to hit free throws, we wouldn't have had to rely on our opponents missing point blank shots. Having your opponent choke like that is way more "luck" in my opinion than UVA making plays and hitting shots.

Put another way, would you call it "luck" that Barrett got the offensive rebound and putback off a missed free throw in the UCF game? Or was it luck when Gerald Henderson went coast to coast against Belmont to preserve a one point win? I agree that Duke's injury luck was poor this year, that played a bigger role in hindering our team's development than many realize. But if you were to tell any non-Duke fan that we were unlucky in this tournament, they would probably laugh in your face.

Thanks as always for the pod, looking forward to the summer updates and then doing it all again next season!

Agreed....and I'll echo that attaching luck to a particular skill-set (passing, shooting, etc) is flimsy. A shot can spin out or lip out, a bounce pass might gather enough English that it spins the wrong way, etc. But over a season, if a team isn't shooting, handling the ball, or making uncharacteristic mental mistakes then that's not luck. That's just not being proficient.

[JasonEvans]

Agreed...and I'll echo that attaching luck to a particular skill-set (passing, shooting, etc) is flimsy. A shot can spin out or lip out, a bounce pass might gather enough English that it spins the wrong way, etc. But over a season, if a team isn't shooting, handling the ball, or making uncharacteristic mental mistakes then that's not luck. That's just not being proficient.

Then how do you account for Luke Kennard, a kid who was widely seen as the best shooter in his class, only hitting 32% of his 3s as a freshman and then hitting 44% as a soph. Do you think he actually improved that much year-to-year (from 32%, a bad shooter, to 44%, one of the best shooters in the country) or maybe he had a tough season where balls that could go just rattled out a lot more than they should.

I want to be clear that I don't credit Virginia's natty to luck. I was merely pointing out that they were massive, huge, underdogs to win three games in a row in the final seconds and they managed to pull it out each time. Part of that is skill and being calm under pressure and doing the right thing... but part of it is just plain getting lucky. They put themselves (or their opponents put them) in a position where every single thing had to go perfectly right in the final 15 seconds for them to win. In three straight games, if one thing goes just a tiny bit differently, they lose. Full props to UVA for getting it done, but I'm telling you that if you replayed those final 15 seconds of those 3 games 100 different times, UVA probably only pulls out the trifecta 1 time in 100.

-Jason "does that make more sense? Talking about luck is tough cause different people define it different ways" Evans

[UrinalCake]

Then how do you account for Luke Kennard, a kid who was widely seen as the best shooter in his class, only hitting 32% of his 3s as a freshman and then hitting 44% as a soph. Do you think he actually improved that much year-to-year (from 32%, a bad shooter, to 44%, one of the best shooters in the country)

To be honest, yes. I think when a high schooler makes the jump to college he has to adjust to a dozen new things - bigger and better defenders, shooting while more closely guarded, and on the move, releasing the ball faster, opponents game planning against you etc. Look at Kennard’s high school mix tapes and he’s mostly shooting standstill wide open threes. All of these changes cause a decline in shooting, but then after a year to adjust and an off-season to work on his skills, his percentages came back up. I don’t see that as luck. Matt Jones followed a similar path, he was a great high school shooter and then went from shooting under 20% as a freshman to around 40% the rest of his career. Within a single game you could say that luck plays a role in how a guy shoots, but not over the course of an entire season.

[DukeDevil]

Your starting five picks made me wonder about a sequential years starting lineup. Any duke player, but you need a player who’s been at Duke 1 year, 2 years, 3, 4, and someone who pulled a grad year.

[UrinalCake]

Your starting five picks made me wonder about a sequential years starting lineup.

1 year: Zion
2 years: Kennard
3 years: JWill
4 years: Laettner
grad: Amile

The tough spots to fill are grad and 2 years, I honestly can’t think of very many. Had to pick Zion and Laettner even though that gives me too many big men.

[DukeDevil]

1 year: Zion
2 years: Kennard
3 years: JWill
4 years: Laettner
grad: Amile

The tough spots to fill are grad and 2 years, I honestly can’t think of very many. Had to pick Zion and Laettner even though that gives me too many big men.

I’d imagine most people would be choosing between kyrie or Zion...though I’d go Zion just because...holy cow...and I’d have J-Will as my PG.

I’ve got some time later today...may try and compile everyone since 1990 or so who falls into each category. The one and dones are pretty easy.

Maggette
Deng
Irving
Rivers
Parker
Okafor
Tyus Jones
Winslow
Ingram
Tatum
Bagley
Duval
Trent
Carter
Barrett
Reddish

[JasonEvans]

The tough spots to fill are grad and 2 years, I honestly can’t think of very many.

Boy, you aren't kidding. I'm not doing a lot of research but these are the only other significant players who come to mind.

Other 2 year candidates: Elton Brand, Chris Burgess, William Avery, Dahntay Jones, Billy McCaffrey, Josh McRoberts, Rodney Hood (he was at Duke for 2 years)

Other grad candidates (I'm not certain these folks graduated and did grad work, but these are guys who were in college for 5 years): MP3, Nate James, Trajan Langdon, Roshown McLeod

-Jason "I'm sure I forgot a few of these" Evans

[wk2109]

Boy, you aren't kidding. I'm not doing a lot of research but these are the only other significant players who come to mind.

Other 2 year candidates: Elton Brand, Chris Burgess, William Avery, Dahntay Jones, Billy McCaffrey, Josh McRoberts, Rodney Hood (he was at Duke for 2 years)

Other grad candidates (I'm not certain these folks graduated and did grad work, but these are guys who were in college for 5 years): MP3, Nate James, Trajan Langdon, Roshown McLeod

-Jason "I'm sure I forgot a few of these" Evans

Another grad is Andre Dawkins.

[Dukehk]

Enjoyed your podcasts this year. Keep up the good work!

Sam's team would destroy simply because they got JWill at the point. That man was incredible.

[devilirium]

Then how do you account for Luke Kennard, a kid who was widely seen as the best shooter in his class, only hitting 32% of his 3s as a freshman and then hitting 44% as a soph. Do you think he actually improved that much year-to-year (from 32%, a bad shooter, to 44%, one of the best shooters in the country) or maybe he had a tough season where balls that could go just rattled out a lot more than they should.

I want to be clear that I don't credit Virginia's natty to luck. I was merely pointing out that they were massive, huge, underdogs to win three games in a row in the final seconds and they managed to pull it out each time. Part of that is skill and being calm under pressure and doing the right thing... but part of it is just plain getting lucky. They put themselves (or their opponents put them) in a position where every single thing had to go perfectly right in the final 15 seconds for them to win. In three straight games, if one thing goes just a tiny bit differently, they lose. Full props to UVA for getting it done, but I'm telling you that if you replayed those final 15 seconds of those 3 games 100 different times, UVA probably only pulls out the trifecta 1 time in 100.

-Jason "does that make more sense? Talking about luck is tough cause different people define it different ways" Evans

I hear ya. I would also suspect that a kid like Kennard has more individual time to work on his shot in the offseason. Sometimes, guys make adjustments during the year --see Trevon Duval--he became surprisingly effective from the perimeter by the NCAA's. But it seems with that offseason work that guys get better. To that end, I would love for a guy like Chip Engelland to spend some extended time with all of our guys. Teams like FSU, VT, UVA, etc seem to consistently shoot in the upper half of the league from the stripe--bare minimum. We've left a fair amount of points there over the years. Chip's specialty, though, remains outside shooting. Hire him for a few weeks. It couldn't hurt.

[JasonEvans]

I would love for a guy like Chip Engelland to spend some extended time with all of our guys. Teams like FSU, VT, UVA, etc seem to consistently shoot in the upper half of the league from the stripe--bare minimum. We've left a fair amount of points there over the years. Chip's specialty, though, remains outside shooting. Hire him for a few weeks. It couldn't hurt.

There are rules about how much coaching (close to none) kids can get during the spring (after the NCAA tourney is over) and summer from the school. Chip is a full time assistant coach with the Spurs and he figures to be very busy almost year round. About the only slow time would be between the Spurs ouster from the playoffs and the NBA draft (I am certain he works hard with the spurs summer league players). I really doubt there is any way he could get in any meaningful work with Duke players and, seeing as he is a NBA coach, there could very well be some severe rules against it.

Bummer cause Chip is about as good as they get in terms of a shooting coach.