Is This Duke Team More Talented Than Some NBA Teams?

[ChillinDuke]

One annoying thing about social media and Boards in general is that the same question is often asked multiple times. This surely won't be the last time someone asks this particular question.

The answer is still, "No."

It will be "No" the next time it's asked as well.

The real advancement of AI will be when it can stop social media users from posting things that have been hashed out billions of times before and just route them to the previous debate. That will be a fun day, huh?

(No offense intended to the OP.)

- Chillin

[johnb]

Obviously I'm not talking about this team as they are today but if you transport them 5 years in the future and they face the current Cavs or Hawks roster, how do you think they do?

Geez. The original poster very specifically wondered whether this team could compete against the worst NBA teams in the year 2023. By that point, I'd guess that at least 4 of our players will have been in the league for several years. Three of them will likely have been chosen among the top 5 or 10 players and will presumably be multi-year starters. Could they compete against the Cavs and Hawks? Even if we think it's best to get at least a couple of data points before sketching out a trajectory of awesomeness, I'd think this team in 2023 would not embarrass itself.

Asked a different way, do you think the Cavs or Hawks would trade their current starters for the chance to have our starters in 2023? Given that the most elite players command an enormous premium and that benchwarmers are relatively interchangeable, and that some of our guys MIGHT end up being all stars, I wouldn't be so quick to condemn!

[uh_no]

Asked a different way, do you think the Cavs or Hawks would trade their current starters for the chance to have our starters in 2023? Given that the most elite players command an enormous premium and that benchwarmers are relatively interchangeable, and that some of our guys MIGHT end up being all stars, I wouldn't be so quick to condemn!

I don't doubt our 4 starters with 5 more years of experience, and an NBA bench would be able to win a few. The question didn't give you an NBA bench though. If you had to go to the floor with our 4 freshmen and jack white and javin and alex, I'll take the NBA team every time. The frosh could hold their own in 5 years time, and the bench would get run off the floor.

[nmduke2001]

The interesting caveat to your question is 5 years from now. I think looking at past teams might give a clue.

1999
Battier
Brand
Avery
Langdon
Maggette

Each of these 5 had at least one start in the NBA. As a hypothetical starting unit with the assumption that they were all at their best NBA level (so not 5 years but their best year), this starting five might hold their own against some of the lower end NBA teams starting fives.

2001
Battier
Boozer
Duhon
Dunleavy
Dahntay Jones
Jason Williams

Same scenario as 1999. All of these guys started at some point in the NBA. One giant assumption; if Jason didn’t get hurt and reached the level in which we all thought he would reach, I think this hypothetical 6 team unit could at least compete with several NBA team’s top 6.

Against a full team, no chance.

[Wander]

Let's say Duke has on average a 1% chance of winning a game against an NBA team (and that may be optimistic). There would be a 44% chance that they'd lose every game in an 82 game season and roughly 5% chance of winning more than 2 games.

I think your average estimate is about right, actually. A few years ago, Vegas estimated the line would be 15 points between the best college team (Kentucky, at that time) and the worst NBA team (the Knicks). The line between an average NBA team and the worst NBA team is about 10 points on a neutral court. So let's say they add, the best college team would be about 25 point underdogs to an average NBA team. Looking at kenpom, that does translate to about a 1% chance of winning.

BUT... you can't just take the average chance of winning and raise it to an exponent of 82 like that (to see what I mean, consider an extreme scenario where Team A has a 0% chance of winning their first game and a 100% chance of winning their second game, but Team B has a 50% chance of winning their first game and a 50% chance of winning their second game... Team A has 100% of winning 1 game, Team B has a 75% of winning 1 game, despite the fact that they have the same average win percentage). The college team would only be an 11 point underdog against a terrible NBA team at home, which translates to about a 15% chance of victory. Sprinkle in a few games where the college team has a 15% chance of winning, a few more where the college team has a 10% of winning, a few more where the college team has a 5% of winning (and yes, the vast majority of games would be between 0–1%)... and you'll find it very likely that the college team would not go 0-82.

I probably went overboard in saying it would be "guaranteed" that a great college team (I know I said Duke, but I really mean a particularly good national championship college team... who knows if that's Duke this year or not) would win "a few" games. But they would be very likely to not go 0-82.

[DukeTrinity11]

One annoying thing about social media and Boards in general is that the same question is often asked multiple times. This surely won't be the last time someone asks this particular question.

The answer is still, "No."

It will be "No" the next time it's asked as well.

The real advancement of AI will be when it can stop social media users from posting things that have been hashed out billions of times before and just route them to the previous debate. That will be a fun day, huh?

(No offense intended to the OP.)

- Chillin

Did you read what I posted? I don't believe the variation of the question as I posed it has been asked on this board multiple times.

Let me rephrase: Would the peak pro potential of the current Duke roster be able to compete with the worst NBA teams at any point?


I think it would depend on just how good Barrett, Zion and RJ become. If 1 or 2 of them become All-NBA caliber, I think they could certainly compete and beat the present day Knicks and Hawks.

I agree with those that have posted that our bench would pale in comparison to NBA benches so 2 of the Big 3 would likely have to be on the floor at all times.

Honestly, this hypothetical might hinge more on if Tre Jones can at least become what Tyus is in the NBA and if Bolden can become serviceable big like Dewayne Dedmon or something. This would exponentially increase Duke's chances of holding its own.

[Newton_14]

No
No

[JNort]

Nope.

Although I will say that is also ridiculous when people claim that teams like Duke would go 0-82 in an NBA season. No way. We'd be the worst team, but would still win a few games.

I gotta side with JE on this. I don't think a college team would stand a chance. They would he outdone in literally every facet of the game by large amounts.

[DukeTrinity11]

For a non-Duke example, take 2012 UK. They had MGK, Anthony Davis, Marquis Teague, and Kyle Wiltjer, lost only two games all season, and were a historically great defensive team. Aside from a blip in the SECT championship they pretty much dominated everyone they played. The results that that team got are what the most optimistic corners of Duke fandom are expecting out of this team.

Of those four, which comprised a consensus #1-ranked recruiting class, only MKG and AD are still in the league. As phenomenal as AD is, he isn't carrying a team on his own to win anything in the NBA. Just take a look at the current NOP roster.

You're basically arguing that not only is this the greatest recruiting class of all time, but the margin between the next best is so astronomically wide that they aren't even in the same universe. The former may very well be true by the end of the year, but the latter? No way.

Sidebar: I think for framing this discussion, you have to look at who would win a seven-game series. There's so much noise in the NBA regular season that the best team doesn't always win 100% of the time, but the playoffs largely removes that. Is it entirely impossible that we shoot 85% and steal a game? No — but we ain't winning the series.

A better example would be Kentucky's 2009-2010 team which actually shows that what I'm hypothesizing is plausible.

UK Starters:

John Wall
Eric Bledsoe
Darius Miller
Patrick Patterson
Boogie Cousins

Fast forward to today and all 5 of those guys are high level NBA starters or rotation players and even with a terrible bench (John Hood, Daniel Orton, DeAndre Liggins), this team would at least be considered at least an average NBA team, possibly above average.

It might be tougher for Duke 2018-19 to replicate UK 2009-10 in NBA success as a roster because our PG and C are likely glaring weaknesses which would be tough to overcome.

[DukeTrinity11]

No
No

See my example of UK 2009-10 which proves its possible.

[jimsumner]

Absolutely, though I think I might take Duke over the 1947 Syracuse Nationals.

Absolutely. Those guys must be really old by now.

[JasonEvans]

Can I just say that rival fans who come here to see what we are talking about are looking at this thread and laughing like crazy. I don't even want to think of what we would be saying if we saw a thread like this on a rival board... even if that rival had just laid an historic and humiliating beatdown on a top-tier team the night before.

[unclsam1]

I watch a lot of Warrior's games, and Duke's transition game last night reminded me a lot of the Warrior's style when they go on a spurt to jump out into an insurmountable lead.

[dukelifer]

No offense, but I think you have lost your mind. This present Duke team would not only go 0-82, they would probably lose every game by 20+points. Marvin Bagley, who until now was the most dominant freshman we have ever seen in a Duke uniform, is not even a starter in the NBA today... and he is playing for the Kings!

Let's pretend that Zion, RJ, and Cam could hold their own against mediocre NBA starters right now (a dubious statement, but not entirely unlikely) Duke would be so massively outclassed at the other two positions on the floor that it would be a joke. In a couple years, with a lot of work and improvement, Marquis Bolden might have a chance against a NBA big... but today, he would get torched for 20-and-20 if not worse. Tre Jones against a NBA point guard... sorry, no way.

And at some point we would have to go to our bench (probably because Bolden and Zion would foul out in about 20 minutes from guarding NBA bigs) and that is where the rout would be on. Jack, Javin, and Alex against NBA 6th-8th men... whew... every game would be over by halftime.

-Jason "five years from now...maybe we would have a chance but I still think the massive drop-off once you hit the 5th -8th man would be too much to overcome. NBA teams have college All-Americans riding the bench" Evans

Exactly- This Duke team played very well last night- but I am not sure they would even beat the 1992 Duke squad. This is a fun group- but be clear- they had a great night collectively. It may never be repeated against top 10 opposition.

[jimsumner]

Even we project the four freshmen starters, along with Bolden and DeLaurier, perhaps Baker, five years into the future in the most positive progression, we still run into the problem that NBA teams--even the worst NBA teams--go pretty deep into their benches. So, what kind of NBA potential does the OP think we can project for O'Connell, White, Goldwire, Vrankovic or Robinson?


Even marginal NBA players are pretty darn good. Heck, G-league players are pretty good. Remember Frank Jackson? After sitting out last year with a foot injury, Jackson is buried on the New Orleans bench, along with 2015 ACC POY Jahlil Okafor. 2015 Final Four MOP Tyus Jones is a bench player. Gary Trent was lighting it up a year ago for Duke. But he can't get any NBA traction. Amile Jefferson dominated the G-league last year and he can't make the Orlando roster.

I think this question keeps popping up because this is a Duke-centric board and we have some posters who just don't follow the NBA closely enough to realize how absurd the premise is.

[Wander]

Remember Frank Jackson?

Honestly? No, not really.

I think this question keeps popping up because this is a Duke-centric board and we have some posters who just don't follow the NBA closely enough to realize how absurd the premise is.

And we have too many posters who just reflexively scoff at these kinds of questions without really thinking about it. We're currently projected to have three top-5 picks. If those guys do actually go that high in the draft, and if they actually pan out into All-Star caliber players the NBA, it's perfectly reasonable to state that we might have more overall talent than at least one NBA team (even though, as you say, our talent would be MUCH less deep than even the worst NBA team).

Those are two big ifs... but it's not unthinkable that they both turn out to be true. In fact, as DukeTrinity11 pointed out, it's arguably already happened with the 2010 Kentucky team.

[jimsumner]

Honestly? No, not really.



And we have too many posters who just reflexively scoff at these kinds of questions without really thinking about it. We're currently projected to have three top-5 picks. If those guys do actually go that high in the draft, and if they actually pan out into All-Star caliber players the NBA, it's perfectly reasonable to state that we might have more overall talent than at least one NBA team (even though, as you say, our talent would be MUCH less deep than even the worst NBA team).

Those are two big ifs... but it's not unthinkable that they both turn out to be true. In fact, as DukeTrinity11 pointed out, it's arguably already happened with the 2010 Kentucky team.

I'm not reflexively scoffing at it. I'm scoffing at it after reflection.

The key word here is "team." An NBA team has 15 players, 12 active for any particular game. The idea that 2019 Duke or 2010 Kentucky or any other college team has talent even remotely equal to an NBA team 12 deep or 15 deep is scoff-worthy.

[WHOneedsSOX]

Absolutely not. Duke has 4 maybe 5 NBA players on the roster. NBA teams obviously have 12-15.

I'm not even sure Duke is the best COLLEGE basketball team in the nation. That win last night was damn impressive but it was only one game against another young team. We'll see in April. There's film now out on them and as more games go on there will be more. There will be games were Duke shoots 1-15 from 3. We'll see how they respond in those games. Other than foul trouble, there's absolutely nothing that went wrong for Duke last night. There's 35+ games to go where things could and will go wrong.

[weezie]

I'm not reflexively scoffing at it. I'm scoffing at it after reflection...

Next we'll have haters decrying our scoffing.

Can't win with the unwashed, slack-jawed hordes.

[JNort]

I think most everyone isn't going by the rules the OP set up. However even if you do that then it still isn't close. To make it closer you would need to only have a 5v5 of starting lineups because NBA depth would destroy the college team. Even that proposed UK team wouldn't hold up with the lack of depth and shooting.