And he varies his pace and aggressiveness. I imagine that we will see him dial his game up/down based on competition. In some games he may facilitate versus more competitive games where i'd expect him to dominate.
Printable View
As we saw last year (no captains despite having a much more experienced senior), being a senior and having played some doesn't inherently lead to captaincy. It's certainly possible that Baker gets named a captain, but it would seem based on that video that Roach and Moore are the designated leaders, and as such seem most likely to be the captains to me.
It was defintely Moore and Roach. I was totally thinking Roach but for whatever reason when I typed the name it came out as Keels. Also when I said Mark looked bigger I meant thicker, not taller. He still looks really fluid and athletic, we're going to have a beast of a frontline. Griffin being able to defend on the perimeter would go a long way toward keeping our bigs on the floor and shoring up our defense. I don't want to overreact to a practice video, we often see bench guys play a bigger role in these types of environments where they have the freedom to put up shots that they wouldn't in an actual game. But I'm hoping we do have a workable bench that can provide some quality depth.
Loved seeing that. Obviously his most effective offense will be close to the basket, but with Banchero also operating inside and lots of guys (Moore, Griffin, Roach) looking to drive hard, having Williams reliably hit a 10-15 footer is a great pressure-release when the defense collapses. It means he can lurk in the dunker spot and the defense doesn't know if he's about to duck in, or take a step back for the jumper--all of that in addition to the point you made about getting defenders to follow him away from the basket. Good sign!
Gotta pay the rent - The Morning Run
https://twitter.com/DukeMBB/status/1414716090962354178
To ask what is probably a stupid question, what is the deal with the ears on Roach and Keels? Each of them seems to have something white on both of their earlobes. Are those earrings? If so, it seems odd to wear them in practice.
If the highlights are any indication, our 2 most unstoppable players will be Banchero and Savarino! Do you think Savarino's mom did the editing?? : )
Last years senior that most Duke fans(including me) thought would be a sure fire captain was Jordan Goldwire. I guess the reason Coach K didn't name him captain was because he's not a vocal leader/player. Baker on the other hand doesn't seem to have a problem with getting vocal. Plus his enthusiasm is off the charts. I think we may see 3 captains this season and they are; Moore, Roach and Baker. No captains in 2020-2021 to 3 captains in 2021-2022 would be a jump.
GoDuke!
Baker is certainly more demonstrative/vocal than Goldwire. My question is that he simply may not see the floor enough to be a captain.
He might still wind up a captain, but the captaincy tends to be combination of leadership characteristics, experience, and playing time. And Baker is likely to be a bit limited on two of those.
Really enjoyed watching that scrimmage. Guys seemed like they were hyper-focused and having fun. A few thoughts:
- I've seen plenty of high school video of Paolo shooting over or bullying smaller defenders and scoring at will. Going up against big Mark in some of these scrimmages will really help him refine his game for much bigger and better D1 college defenders - same effect battling against Theo John.
- You can't read too much into highlights like these, but it does look to me like Roach and Moore are shooting the ball confidently. I always felt like Moore had a bit of a hitch in his jump shot but it looks very fluid in this scrimmage - maybe he's tweaked his form in the offseason? Worked for RJ Barrett this past summer...
- Mark Williams is absolutely enormous. Can't wait to watch his continued development this season.
- On a court full of elite athletes, AJ still stands out. He's also got such a quick release on his jumper. If he can consistently knock down 3s and force defenders to respect his outside shot, he will have a huge year for us offensively.
- I saw it in his high school video and it shows up in this scrimmage. Paolo is very good at collapsing the defense with a drive and kicking it out to an open shooter. I expect this will be a big part of our offense this year with Paolo maybe averaging 4-5 apg. A big key to our 2010 championship was the inside out play that left Smith, Scheyer and Singler stepping into open 3s. AJ obviously has the same skills to drive and kick. I hope we see a lot of that this year with Roach, Moore, Baker and Keels feasting on plenty of open 3s.
If Coach K brings back captains (which I hope he does), I suspect Moore is a shoo-in.
Baker seems like a really good candidate, given his seniority, enthusiasm, vocality (made up word), and likelihood of cracking the rotation.
Roach is interesting. Sophomore Tre Jones was a captain in '19-'20. Same with Paulus and McBob in '06-'07. All those players were highlighted significantly during the season. If Roach is captain, I suspect he'll be featured prominently, which is a good thing.
All of those other players were regarded as good or great defenders, and while it isn't stated explicitly anywhere, I expect that had a lot to do with their selection as captains. Roach is cut from very different cloth. I just haven't seen him in much of a true "floor general" role. Maybe that's something he's learning over the summer? Obviously I have no way to really know, but Roach as captain seems pretty unlikely from where I sit.
One-on-one, maybe, but he did a lot of the "floor general" thing on defense. And he was an above-average defender, I think. He was more of a floor general on offense, too, often pointing to guys where to go in the offensive set. His bio on GoDuke starts his career notes with "A gritty competitor who serves as the team's floor leader." So maybe he wasn't a great one-on-one defender, but he was very much a defensive leader, IMO. I don't think that describes Roach, who is also much worse than Paulus ever was at one-on-one defense.
I try to give Paulus more credit than some other Duke fans do, but I also remember him being a terrible defender. It’s why he was benched for Elliot Williams and eventually moved to the 2 guard. But he was also more suited to be a captain as a sophomore than Roach based on his role and style of play.
Roach has the tools to be at least an average defender, maybe more as he gains experience in our system.
No, Paulus was a terrible defender. He was pugnacious, but he was really bad at defense. I think you may be letting the "gritty, plucky, scrappy" image cloud the memory of Paulus' skill set.
Also, I am not sure I agree that Roach is worse at one-on-one defense than Paulus, especially accounting for the fact that we saw four years of Paulus' development compared with just a bastardized freshman season (minimal preseason work) with a really inexperienced team for Roach's freshman year.
Yeah, Paulus's principal problem was that he couldn't live up to the hype of being the top PG in his class...his lack of quickness was exposed in college...