Agree.
Sure I’ll get flamed for this, but if he’s not “trying to make excuses for a loss”, what exactly is he doing?
Printable View
The main point I was trying to make is that UNC fans are obsessed with viciously denigrating Coach K. I refuse to believe Duke fans are anywhere close to that level of outright hatred towards Roy. Have you gone on Inside Carolina? Have you read the despicable things MANY Heels fans say about our coach? It goes way beyond typical fan banter towards a rival team’s coach.
Billy, you're one of my favorite posters but this was not a hot take for me. Through 8 games, Javin's demeanor has been largely bull-in-a-china-shop and then appealing to refs like they're on drugs when they call him. He's been sped up, he's missing free throws, his defense has not been grounded and way too jumpy (literally leaving his feet). The list goes on.
None of this is to say Javin can't improve. It's possible. As Kedsy often states, maybe he takes a Zoubekian leap. But I don't remember Zoubek's demeanor being quite so "it's not me it's you" when appealing to refs. Javin needs to chill out. He has been completely not good. Notice I didn't say bad. But he has not been good.
I don't think it's a hot take at this point. I recognize calling him "entitled" is strong and I said as much in my post(s). But he's acting like the refs should know better when they whistle him. That strikes me as a really silly stance from Javin, a senior captain, whether or not he truly feels or believes that we will never know.
I hope for more from him. But through 8 games I'm very very much disappointed and discouraged by his play, almost universally.
Here's looking forward to better days.
- Chillin
It's definitely one sided. It was clear to me - having lived through Dean's Myth dominating Duke for years...then watching first Foster, and then Coach K flip the script, that Tar Heel nation was far more obsessed with Duke than Duke fans ever were with UNC, and far nastier, and far more ignorant in their comments. Duke fans don't like it when the Cheats have a better team and a better year, but Cheat fans simply meltdown and cannot handle it when Duke dominates.
Re K being ill: an explanation is not the same thing as an excuse. A person can say "I performed poorly because of x,y, and z" without implying or stating the further part that makes it an excuse "therefore I am blameless for whatever happened." I think everyone recognized that the coaching staff performed poorly in the SFA game and I also think Coach K was trying to let people know that they knew it too. It makes sense. If a person just got some health news that required them to make a lot of decisions about whether they or a loved one should have this or that surgery or treatment, they would be only human if they weren't a little distracted.
Also, the other posters are spot on about Cryolina fans. They definitely take their hatred of Duke to a cruder and more intense, trollish level than Duke fans do their feelings about them.
It's funny to think that Dean Smith has been retired for 22+ years(and dead for at least five of those) and they've been through three coaches after that, and that third one is in his 17th season (and arguably more successful), but some Cheat fans still can't get over him. But of course, we might be the same way about Coach K...
Please, stop right there, you've said all the needs saying...
I agree he's been worse than we all hoped, I just didn't think "entitled" was the right description as the kid seems humble and desperate to do well. But, it doesn't matter much what we call him, the problems are the same. Yes, here's to better days.
I got lots of obscene views abouth Carolina fans, but the worst offenders have never set foot on the UNC campus. Do we call them "Walmart fans," or is that an insult to the retailer? IMHO (where the H got filched in the Daily Tar Heel office), many UNC fans are decent people.
Javin DeLaurier has never struck me as entitled in any way, shape or form. Just a bizarre thought, IMO.
Sometimes he needs to slow down and let the game come to him. He can get in a loop in which the harder he tries, the more mistakes he makes, which makes him try harder, which leads to more mistakes and it can easily spiral out of control. But I trust he'll figure it out.
Totally agree here. The problem is not that Javin is expecting things to come to him easy and not working hard. The problem is that he's not particularly skilled in many of the things that people see as counting as basketball skill (dribbling and shooting), so he works insanely hard to make up for that in other areas and that often comes off as frenetic. He's pretty clearly frustrated with his play thus far, and that's not helping. But the effort is 1000% not the problem.
It would be really nice if the game slowed down for him a bit and he didn't feel like he had to do everything, especially defensively (my own sense is that he's tried to step into the Zion be-impossibly-everywhere-in-help role on that end, and he's just not good enough (who is?)). He can be such a valuable player when he plays within himself. If he can figure it out a bit, that would be massive for this team. There are some things that he's just never going to do well, but that's totally ok.
Javin is taking a lot of flak right now, and I've been a part of the conversation, but let's not forget that he is more than capable of providing good minutes in a backup role. When Zion went down with the shoe explosion last year, Javin had probably the best stretch of his career. There was a period of 8 or 9 games where he literally did not miss a field goal, and came within 1 make of tying the ACC record for consecutive makes. Granted, pretty much all of his attempts are within 2 feet of the rim, but his 74.7% shooting from all of last year is probably more indicative of what he's capable of, rather than the paltry 34.6% that he's shot thus far in 2019-20.
He's also fouling at what seems to be the highest rate of his career thus far, which is sort of the opposite of what usually happens with big men as they progress further in to their college careers.
All I'm trying to say is, his extremely poor performance thus far appears to be something that should improve, given what he was able to do as recently as last season. He was a good rotation player last year. I'm not holding out a ton of hope, but the stats suggest he can, and should, do much better going forward.
He came within 1 make of breaking the record, he did in fact tie it.
I agree with the rest of what you say. The only thing he hasn't improved upon so far is shooting the ball, and foul rate (but i don't have stats on that to verify). Otherwise, his value is about the same as it was for most of last year. It's disappointing that improvement hasn't been obvious, and the collapse of his FG% reduces his overall value somewhat, but as a backup C/PF he is still a decent option. However, since Carey is really our only other post presence option, this team needs Javin to be a little bit more than simply a serviceable back-up that fouls a lot. If he could be a +serviceable back-up without an insane foul rate, i think we might be talking about the C/PF position being a strength overall for Duke. This is something Javin ought to be able to achieve, and in fact has achieved it periodically in his career at Duke. Achieving it consistently from here on out is the challenge.
As I said in an earlier post, Javin has been putting too much pressure on himself. From what I read coming into this season, Javin was having great workouts with Coach James and I believe he expected to begin the season doing many things well. However, it's different come game time. The game speeds up and adrenaline does as well. As Jim put it, the harder he tries, the more mistakes he makes and it spirals out of control. Javin has certain things he can do well when he's under control. He can be a good rebounder, he can block shots, he can run the floor and he knows the Duke man to man defense. It's mostly on the offensive side of the ball that he has troubles. He doesn't have good hands, he has a hard time finishing through contact, he's not a good low post option and he's a very poor shooter. I know the young man wants to do those things better but he's not going to get there anytime soon. The team needs him to do the things which he does well consistently. Vernon is going to need some rest and Javin is the logical choice as his replacement. He needs to come in with the mind set that he's going to play well in short spurts and not get ahead of himself. I think he can do that if he'll just stop playing like a runaway train. I don't think he plays entitled. That's not Javin's problem.
GoDuke!
I don't want to pile on, but this statement has me scratching my head. The only things Javin hasn't improved upon from last year to this year are shooting the ball and foul rate? So, that means he's improved on everything else? I'm confused. I wouldn't suggest he's regressed across the board because I simply haven't done the analysis to reach that conclusion, but I can't imagine there are many things he's improved upon this season. He was a solid rotation player last season who provided plus minutes, and this season he's a major liability on both ends.
Of course, last season showed us that he's capable of being a nice piece, so there's hope he can improve from what the team's getting now.