Big Man Perception

[COYS]

I think that's the key right there. Unfortunately, what that means is that the players who have the type of skills that we're talking about here may choose to go elsewhere. If I were a big man, I wouldn't necessarily want to come to duke and set screens all the time when i could go elsewhere and simply pound it in the post. That's not an attack on playing that way, just what I'd consider from the player's perspective. In the same vein, why would a star wide receiver go to a college where the football team runs on 80% of the downs? This doesn't mean the big men can't be wildly successful and phenomenal at what they do (as we are seeing from ryan and mason so far this year...and Z 2 years ago) just that their purpose on the floor is to make the offense more prolific, and coach K thinks that happens by not necessarily having them post up 100% of the time.

This is in response to wheat and uh no, but I feel like this post underscores what I think is revisionist history. Coach K has had strong post scorers for most of his career. Brand was the centerpiece of an extremely talented offense. Boozer was not featured as much as brand but still had plenty of post touches. Shelden was co-focus with JJ. And this doesn't go back farther than 1998. Remember that Christian added his perimeter game as his career progressed. K certainly values versatility and has had some incredible face-up forwards as well. But the staff has made great use of post scoring many, many times. We simply have not had a traditional post scorer on the roster for a while other than zoubek. We recruited Patterson but didn't get him. We recruited Monroe (who was more of a hybrid) but didn't get him. We've missed a few other targets who can operate in the post, as well. If we'd gotten Patterson, we'd never even have this thread. When K has had players capable of scoring the post, he's used them extensively. Even this year now that Mason has improved in the post, we've gone to him more. It is a misrepresentation of K's past teams to say
that he doesn't emphasize post scoring.

[jimsumner]

Even since Shelden, I'm not sure the stereotype is accurate. Josh McRoberts averaged 13 points (and 3.5 assists) per game as Duke's primary center in 2007. McRoberts only made five 3-pointers that season, so he did most of his damage inside.

The next season, Kyle Singler played out of position, as Zoubek had a bad foot. Singler averaged 13.3 ppg.

Neither was a prototype 5. But both played that position and did so without setting an inordinate number of screens.

Mason is averaging a double-double so far this year.

So, were are talking two seasons here, one of which resulted in an NCAA title.

I think we're underestimating how rare are the Elton Brand-Jared Sullinger low-post talents. There just aren't that many. Duke has declined to recruit marginal players at that position on more than one occasion. Last summer a kid named Landen Lucas practically begged Duke for an offer. Duke scouted him and decided to pass. He ended up signing with Kansas but only after Kansas missed on guys like Tarczewski.

Who would you rather have, a mediocre "pure" post or Ryan Kelly? Because Duke has asked that or a similar question on more than one occasion and opted for the Kelly analog. But, make no mistake. Duke will take and use an Elton Brand any day of the year.

[uh_no]

It is a misrepresentation of K's past teams to say
that he doesn't emphasize post scoring.

I never actually said that. I simply said that dumping it to the big guy is not the best option with all types of rosters, and over the past 5-6 years, it clearly has not been the number one option. This affects public perception, and the result is that recruits don't think coach K uses big men. Reality is largely irrelevent (and as you and I have both pointed out, largely differs from public perception)...but all that matters in the end in terms of landing targets is what they think of duke, and that is (in my opinion) much more affected by public perception than it is by reality, especially reality which is mostly many years in the past.

[jimsumner]

I never actually said that. I simply said that dumping it to the big guy is not the best option with all types of rosters, and over the past 5-6 years, it clearly has not been the number one option. This affects public perception, and the result is that recruits don't think coach K uses big men. Reality is largely irrelevent (and as you and I have both pointed out, largely differs from public perception)...but all that matters in the end in terms of landing targets is what they think of duke, and that is (in my opinion) much more affected by public perception than it is by reality, especially reality which is mostly many years in the past.

What you said is that you wouldn't go to Duke if you were a big man because you wouldn't want to spend all your time setting screens.

I do not believe that to be an accurate characterization of Duke's use of big men.

[OldPhiKap]

I'm not arguing a) that duke has not had great big men as recent as 6 years ago or b) that the duke coaching staff is unable to effectively recruit big men.

Students being recruited now are 16-18 meaning they were 10-12 when shelden finished up. It's a lot easier for roy williams to say "look tyler hansbrough" than it is for K to bring up a big man who had his college heyday when the recruit was in elementary school. It's "what have you done for me lately"...think about kyrie's recruitment: people were telling him not to go to duke because coach K stifles point guards...well...after he flashed it up for a few games, and nolan had a phenomenal year from the point, you don't hear that anymore...public consciousness of these things is a few years at best.

So, does that mean the Heels will stop talking about MJ?

Current kids can look to Carlos, Luol, and others. OR they can look to the great support from every pro on the Olympic team. You don't think K could tell a big guy that he reminds Coach of the guys on that team bigger than 6' 9"?

[uh_no]

What you said is that you wouldn't go to Duke if you were a big man because you wouldn't want to spend all your time setting screens.

I do not believe that to be an accurate characterization of Duke's use of big men.

What I said is that is the perception of the use of duke's big men...and have several times stated that many of the common characterizations of duke's teams are inaccurate.

[Dev11]

Because Thanksgiving weekend requires a significant amount of sitting around in airports, I took the opportunity to conduct a little research. I looked back over the last ten NBA drafts and took down names of post players (I was slightly liberal in including small forwards if I remembered them as posts in college, like Luol). I chose to cut off at the lottery because while guys like McRoberts are good examples of posts to come from your college, I wanted to focus on the ones who left school with the most NBA "potential," whatever that means (As I type this, Carlos Boozer is probably doing rebounding drills while Kwame Brown waits to see what solid complementary piece he has just been traded for). Without posting the whole list (its about 85 guys), here were my findings, based on numbers by school:

1. Kansas produces big men, apparently. They had 7 guys fit the category by my count.
2. So do Carolina and UCONN, apparently. They had 5 each.
3. Four teams (Duke included) had 3.
4. Many other teams were represented by one or two guys.

OK, so those are my findings just pertaining to American college players. Conclusion from this: there isn't a huge amount of separation among the "top" programs for producing bigs. By the numbers, Kansas would be the only one that I consider a regular producer of bigs. One can easily dissect each school's entries for guys who weren't there long enough to soak up enough knowledge to be considered as coached up by their college (Wright at UNC), guys who flamed out pretty fast (Thabeet for UCONN) and guys who don't play post anymore (Deng at Duke).

Note, however, how many prominent NBA bigs don't fall into my list. Non-college guys who fell outside the lottery of the last ten years include most of the best bigs currently in the league. Think high schoolers (Howard, Garnett), older guys (Shaq, Brand) and foreigners (Gasols, Yao). In fact, if you look over the list of "prominent" NBA bigs, few were actually coached any time recently in college. It would be tough for any coach to claim some kind of real mastery of producing NBA bigs.

I would like to think that this is the kind of information that K shares with recruits like Tony Parker. "Look, nobody regularly produces effective NBA bigs. We coach basketball here, and damnit we're pretty good at getting guys to the league." A kid can hear as much negative recruiting as he wants, but I'm sure there is something much more powerful when coaches like K and Self walk into the living room and detail what the facts are.

(Side note: it is sad how many lottery picks turn out to be total busts. Anybody remember Patrick O'Bryant from Bradley? I didn't).

I think my conclusion here is that bigs don't really come from anywhere. Show me the big man factories and I will poke holes in your assertion. I don't have a problem with the idea that K is showing this to recruits and is dispelling rumors about his lack of production.

This subject interests and irritates me much more than it should. Let me know what you think.

[UrinalCake]

Cool analysis, Dev11. A couple of points in response:

- I'd be interested in seeing the breakdown before and after the one-year rule was instituted in 2005. Prior to then there was virtually no chance that a skilled, athletic seven-footer would go to college. With that said, my gut tells me that most of the Kansas bigs were probably not one-and-doners, so the rule didn't affect them too much.
- How many prominent bigs would you say there are in the entire NBA? I'd say maybe ten and that's even a bit of a stretch.
- I never considered Deng to be a post player. Definitely a 3/4, but a face-up guy who drove from the perimeter.

[Li_Duke]

All this angst about our big man perception. I recall a time when Duke was known for developing great mobile big men like Danny Ferry and Christian Laettner. Then we were known for developing undersized low post big men like Elton, Carlos, and Sheldon. Mason and Kelly are well on their way to becoming successes, hopefully Marshall follows them, and soon enough, Duke will be known for developing mobile big men again.

Meanwhile, let's just enjoy the continuing perception that we develop great scoring guards (Ferry, Trajan, Jay, JJ, Nolan, Curry, Austin, and later Rasheed) and versatile 6-8/6-9 forwards (Grant, Shane, Mike Dunleavy, Luol, Kyle, and later Alex and hopefully Jabari) and enjoy watching the eventual return of our developing big man reputation.

[jimsumner]

All this angst about our big man perception. I recall a time when Duke was known for developing great mobile big men like Danny Ferry and Christian Laettner. Then we were known for developing undersized low post big men like Elton, Carlos, and Sheldon. Mason and Kelly are well on their way to becoming successes, hopefully Marshall follows them, and soon enough, Duke will be known for developing mobile big men again.

Meanwhile, let's just enjoy the continuing perception that we develop great scoring guards (Ferry, Trajan, Jay, JJ, Nolan, Curry, Austin, and later Rasheed) and versatile 6-8/6-9 forwards (Grant, Shane, Mike Dunleavy, Luol, Kyle, and later Alex and hopefully Jabari) and enjoy watching the eventual return of our developing big man reputation.

Pretty sure Ferry wasn't a guard. Assume you meant Dawkins.

And it's Shelden.

I maintain that Krzyzewski's ability to sculpt his teams to best utilize their skills is one of his least-appreciated talents. Duke has won big, Duke has won small. Duke has won up-tempo and steady tempo, with back-court scoring, with front-court scoring. Duke has won with mobile bigs, Duke has won with low-post power bigs, Duke has won with scoring points, with pass-first points, with veterans, with youngsters, with guys moving from one position to another, with lineups that rarely changed, with lineups that changed every few games.

With the caveat that Duke is going to be a man-to-man defensive team as long as K is running the ship, K is remarkably flexible in how his teams achieve the consistent goal of winning basketball games.