The thing about seniors

[MCFinARL]

Six senior-laden teams, and only one championship? Ho-hum.

Of course I type with tongue firmly in cheek.

While an interesting factoid, it does raise a key issue. A senior-laden team is usually blessed with "leadership."

Last year's team was severely lacking in leadership, and frankly, I don't see any of our four seniors as leaders. None are vocal, none have shown a desire for the ball in clutch situations, and none have demonstrated the ability to come up with a big defensive play in key situations.

The list of 20 players on the six teams Kedsey cites includes: 4 guys who later coached, one who became an NBA GM, and a future NBA owner. Several were considered defensive stoppers, with at least one defensive player of the year. Who will be surprised when Scheyer returns to the bench as a coach.

Fortunately, Mason chose to return to continue his studies - in leadership - from the best teacher in the world. There is a reason that CEO's from around the world come to learn from Coach K. The mystery is the failure of leadership last year.

My guess is that the natural leader of the team should have been Austin as the best player on the team and the son of NBA hall-of-fame-to-be coach/player Doc Rivers. That this failed explains why Tyler Thornton was inserted into the line-up.

I am confident that leadership will be a huge issue this year (duh, it is every year). Having seniors is a great plus, but I am interested in seeing who steps up as a leader. My guess is Mason, he has the emotion, and the ability to make big defensive plays.

Leadership skills can be improved and honed, but leaders are born. It is a rare bird who becomes a leader without showing those traits throughout life. Most of those rare birds have their leadership characteristics revealed through their actions and reactions to difficult, stressful situations.

Maybe we didn't have leaders on the team or maybe the situations did not arise that revealed the leaders. Who knows?

I agree that Mason is most likely to emerge as the main leader of this team. In his interview after deciding to come back he said that is his plan, and it seems honing his leadership skills is one of the key areas he wants to work on before moving to the next level.

I also agree that Austin was sort of the "leader apparent" on last year's team, but it didn't really work out. I'm not sure that is really Austin's fault, at least from a leadership standpoint. If Indoor66 is right that leaders are born (more on that later), Austin would seem to have a lot of the necessary traits--confidence, a pretty good (if not completely developed) sense of his own strengths and limitations, both the desire and the sangfroid to make the big play at the crucial time.

But I'm not sure the "born" leadership characteristics are the only piece of the puzzle. The most successful team leaders are going to know not only their own strengths and weaknesses, but those of their teammates. They are going to have a good sense of how to get the best out of everyone on the team, what each person's habits and patterns are, when to get on them and when to back off. In a basketball context, they are going to be able to use this information to anticipate what people will do on the court--to know when to look for someone in his favorite shooting spot and get him the ball, when to expect the lob from the ballhandler, when to look to back up someone who is likely to go for a steal on defense. On the very best teams, everyone is doing this to some extent, but the key leader or leaders need to set the example.

For pretty obvious reasons, it's very hard for a freshman to excel at this part of leadership, except, perhaps, in the point guard position where focusing on teammates is such an important part of the role, because so much learning is involved. Some people may be more naturally suited to this than others, and obviously court vision (which is part of this) seems to be a skill that some possess from the get go and others never, but I think big chunks of knowing and working with your teammates depend on learning--willingness to shift your focus and expend the effort, during play and while watching film, to understand your teammates as players. This part of it didn't come instinctively to Austin the way it perhaps does to someone like Kyrie Irving or Kendall Marshall (again, point guards); he might have grown into it with another year.

As for Mason, he seems to want to be the leader on this team, and at least at times he has shown a lot of the characteristics people on this thread have been identifying with leadership--intensity, making the big play, etc. Can he learn the rest, or enough of it? I think, and hope, he can. There is a lot riding on it, for Mason and for Duke, and maybe not just next year. Now that people (including, apparently, his high school coach) are promoting the "Duke hasn't used Mason Plumlee correctly" meme, a big senior year for Mason could be an eloquent answer to some of the Duke program's most vocal critics.

A good place to start will be with Quinn Cook (and with Tyler Thornton as well; I'm hopeful Cook will be ready to take on more responsibility this year, but even if that happens I assume we will still see a fair amount of Thornton). If the offense is to run more through Mason this year, he and the point guards need to know each other's moves and habits backwards and forwards; hopefully they will all be working on that, as well as their individual games, over the summer. And both point guards have the potential to be more vocal leaders on the floor, pairing with a perhaps less vocal, lead-by-example style from Mason (not unlike the Nolan-Kyle leadership model).

Then hopefully the other seniors step in to make a full-on commitment to playing the best basketball they can in their last chance, being leaders as a group in effort, desire, and focus on team.

If all this happens, I'm very excited about what this group might be able to accomplish next year. If it doesn't, it could be another year like this one--with some great moments but some very disappointing ones as well. We'll see.

[oldnavy]

From my perspective the key to next year will be Ryan Kelly. If he can take that "next step" and become more aggressive and strong with the ball, I believe we will have a very good year. I believe that he can become the leader of the team as well.

The reason I think he is the key, is because he will create space for Mason to operate as well as the guards to drive. As we all know getting into the paint is KEY! At the end of this past year we spent a lot of time passing and dribbling around the perimeter. We need to open up the lane by pulling the bigs out. If Kelly can do this AND if he can develop the ability to put the ball on the floor to drive at times, I think our whole offense takes a step up and EVERYONE improves...more open jumpers for Andre and Seth, more room for MG and AM to operate, etc...

It was noticable how our offense stagnated when Kelly got injured at the end of the year. We will need a healthy and stronger Ryan Kelly to make some noise late into March and April next year IMO...

[MCFinARL]

From my perspective the key to next year will be Ryan Kelly. If he can take that "next step" and become more aggressive and strong with the ball, I believe we will have a very good year. I believe that he can become the leader of the team as well.

The reason I think he is the key, is because he will create space for Mason to operate as well as the guards to drive. As we all know getting into the paint is KEY! At the end of this past year we spent a lot of time passing and dribbling around the perimeter. We need to open up the lane by pulling the bigs out. If Kelly can do this AND if he can develop the ability to put the ball on the floor to drive at times, I think our whole offense takes a step up and EVERYONE improves...more open jumpers for Andre and Seth, more room for MG and AM to operate, etc...

It was noticable how our offense stagnated when Kelly got injured at the end of the year. We will need a healthy and stronger Ryan Kelly to make some noise late into March and April next year IMO...

I definitely agree with this--and I didn't mean to discount the importance of Kelly in my earlier post. Everyone on the floor is going to be important, and good communication among, and good play by, the seniors will be especially important. I just think the first step to maximizing Mason's effectiveness on offense is good communication between him and the point guards--but a healthy and effective Ryan is a very important second step, as well as an offensive contribution in his own right.

[loldevilz]

From my perspective the key to next year will be Ryan Kelly. If he can take that "next step" and become more aggressive and strong with the ball, I believe we will have a very good year. I believe that he can become the leader of the team as well.

The reason I think he is the key, is because he will create space for Mason to operate as well as the guards to drive. As we all know getting into the paint is KEY! At the end of this past year we spent a lot of time passing and dribbling around the perimeter. We need to open up the lane by pulling the bigs out. If Kelly can do this AND if he can develop the ability to put the ball on the floor to drive at times, I think our whole offense takes a step up and EVERYONE improves...more open jumpers for Andre and Seth, more room for MG and AM to operate, etc...

It was noticable how our offense stagnated when Kelly got injured at the end of the year. We will need a healthy and stronger Ryan Kelly to make some noise late into March and April next year IMO...

I disagree. Quinn Cook at point guard is going to be the key. Kelly and Mason will be at least good hopefully great. Duke will have either as bad of point guard play as we've had in years in Thornton or nearly elite point guard play if Cook plays to his potential. I'm definitely hoping for the later.

The other key IMO will be Dawkins. The guy simply has to get better. He needs to be the kind of unstoppable force that he is capable of being. Anyone with his shooting ability and athletiicism should be dominant at this level.

[flyingdutchdevil]

I disagree. Quinn Cook at point guard is going to be the key. Kelly and Mason will be at least good hopefully great. Duke will have either as bad of point guard play as we've had in years in Thornton or nearly elite point guard play if Cook plays to his potential. I'm definitely hoping for the later.

The other key IMO will be Dawkins. The guy simply has to get better. He needs to be the kind of unstoppable force that he is capable of being. Anyone with his shooting ability and athletiicism should be dominant at this level.

I agree with both you and oldnavy: it's Cook and Kelly. We know what we're getting from Curry and we know what we're getting from MP2 (hopefully improved Curry and MP2), but I have no idea what to expect from Kelly. Every year, he has improved and transformed his body. He went from Henson's body to Dunleavy's body to McRobert's body. I'm curious to see what body we'll have next year. Also, with Kelly, he is one of two players who can hit the mid-range jump shot. If he can work on that shot more and create better chemistry with MP2, that is a nasty front court.

Cook is also a different maker. I think Kelly's presence can take us to the top of the ACC, but Cook can take us deep into March. His court vision on a team of players who can score will be so clutch. His ability to penetrate, distribute, and be creative is absolutely key for next year's team. If he a) can get 100% healthy and b) work on his D, we have our PG for the next 3 years. I'm not discounting TT at all - I love his leadership and tenacity - but Cook's potential, especially on the offensive end, is significantly higher and I know that Coach K will tap into that this summer.

[CDu]

I disagree. Quinn Cook at point guard is going to be the key. Kelly and Mason will be at least good hopefully great. Duke will have either as bad of point guard play as we've had in years in Thornton or nearly elite point guard play if Cook plays to his potential. I'm definitely hoping for the later.

The other key IMO will be Dawkins. The guy simply has to get better. He needs to be the kind of unstoppable force that he is capable of being. Anyone with his shooting ability and athletiicism should be dominant at this level.

I think there are any number of players who could be key:

Mason: can he make the jump offensively to being a consistent force on the blocks? He had several really productive offensive games and several clunkers. Can he become a 15-17 ppg, 10-11 rpg presence for us?

Kelly: Can he expand his offensive game beyond being primarily a catch-and-shoot player? Can he become a better rebounder and defender?

Murphy: Just how good is he going to be? Can he become the starter and an impact player at SF? Will he be able to play some at PF if we decide to go more athletic at that position?

Gbinije: Just how good is he going to be? Can he provide significant productive minutes at SF? Can he pair with Murphy as a pair of tall, long, athletic forwards when we go with an athletic lineup?

Dawkins: Is he going to improve his offensive game such that he's not relegated to catch-and-shoot opportunities? Is he going to improve his focus and effort on defense? I suspect he'll be limited to SF minutes as I just don't see him developing the ballhandling skills to play SG. But we'll see.

Sulaimon: How ready is he going to be? Is he good enough to push Curry to PG and Cook/Thornton to the bench? He has the quickness and length to be a very productive SG. He's not ready to be a star, but I think he'll be very important to changing how we do things on the defensive end.

Curry: Can he get better at creating his own shot, as well as creating for others? If he can play PG, the doors open for us to explore playing Sulaimon more at SG. This would make us more dangerous offensively, and would allow us to add potentially our best on-ball defender to the lineup.

Cook: Can he get good enough defensively to warrant running the offense? He's a much more gifted offensive player than Thornton (who largely played because we needed someone to play defense - often at SF - and wasn't really much of a PG) but he isn't going to see a starting spot if he can't cut it defensively.