Will our bench be used

[UrinalCake]

^ when we talk about depth/bench usage, the issues that we're concerned about (imo) are:

- will starters get fatigued during the game because they have to play so many minutes?
- will starters get worn down at the end of the season as a cumulative effect of playing so many total minutes?
- do we have positional flexibility to play lots of different styles and match up against different types of opponents?
- if a player gets injured, is there another player that can step up without a big drop off in production?
- will players transfer because they are not getting enough minutes?
- somewhat related to the above, will players stay "happy" and engaged, and give forth maximum effort because their hard work is being rewarded with playing time?
- will players improve and develop over the course of the season as a result of getting playing time? Or will they be stunted because they are stuck on the bench?

In the scenario that I am describing - having 4 or 5 core players and then a group of 3-4 players who play more or less each game, resulting in a different 6 or 7 players every game - issues #1 and #2 are not addressed, but the other issues are. I think this is a reasonable way to manage a deep roster, and not that different from how other teams do it.

[soflabluedevil]

^ when we talk about depth/bench usage, the issues that we're concerned about (imo) are:

- will starters get fatigued during the game because they have to play so many minutes?
- will starters get worn down at the end of the season as a cumulative effect of playing so many total minutes?
- do we have positional flexibility to play lots of different styles and match up against different types of opponents?
- if a player gets injured, is there another player that can step up without a big drop off in production?
- will players transfer because they are not getting enough minutes?
- somewhat related to the above, will players stay "happy" and engaged, and give forth maximum effort because their hard work is being rewarded with playing time?
- will players improve and develop over the course of the season as a result of getting playing time? Or will they be stunted because they are stuck on the bench?

In the scenario that I am describing - having 4 or 5 core players and then a group of 3-4 players who play more or less each game, resulting in a different 6 or 7 players every game - issues #1 and #2 are not addressed, but the other issues are. I think this is a reasonable way to manage a deep roster, and not that different from how other teams do it.

1-yes
2-yes
3-yes
4-not without having minutes to develop
5-yes
6-some, not all
7-they will not get enough minutes to develop so they will be stunted

[Kedsy]

1-yes
2-yes
3-yes
4-not without having minutes to develop
5-yes
6-some, not all
7-they will not get enough minutes to develop so they will be stunted

I completely disagree with almost all of your answers.

[Channing]

Can someone please explain why everyone is so sure that Joey Baker is going to only see spot minutes? If he didn't reclassify he would be our second highest recruit coming in (assuming he maintained his #15 ranking). He would have been a sure fire McD AA and, presumably, a year in Duke's system only made him better than playing a year in high school. He is 18 and doesn't turn 19 until September (if a quick Google search is to be believed). Putting him behind even Moore seems like an enthrallment with the unknown. Is the reasoning that since he didn't get off the bench last year he won't get off the bench next year? If K kept his redshirt would people have a different impression of his abilities?

[NSDukeFan]

Can someone please explain why everyone is so sure that Joey Baker is going to only see spot minutes? If he didn't reclassify he would be our second highest recruit coming in (assuming he maintained his #15 ranking). He would have been a sure fire McD AA and, presumably, a year in Duke's system only made him better than playing a year in high school. He is 18 and doesn't turn 19 until September (if a quick Google search is to be believed). Putting him behind even Moore seems like an enthrallment with the unknown. Is the reasoning that since he didn't get off the bench last year he won't get off the bench next year? If K kept his redshirt would people have a different impression of his abilities?

I have no idea how much Baker will play next year (I hope a significant amount), but after Alex Murphy, Andre Dawkins and Derryck Thornton (spelling?) I am not as confident in the player will get much better at Duke than they would have in high school, even though I feel this should be true.

[CajunDevil]

Can someone please explain why everyone is so sure that Joey Baker is going to only see spot minutes? If he didn't reclassify he would be our second highest recruit coming in (assuming he maintained his #15 ranking). He would have been a sure fire McD AA and, presumably, a year in Duke's system only made him better than playing a year in high school. He is 18 and doesn't turn 19 until September (if a quick Google search is to be believed). Putting him behind even Moore seems like an enthrallment with the unknown. Is the reasoning that since he didn't get off the bench last year he won't get off the bench next year? If K kept his redshirt would people have a different impression of his abilities?

Totally agree. I have plugged Baker into my starting lineup with Moore, AOC or Stanley at the 2, Tre, Hurt, and Carey. Baker played an entire year against RJ and/or Cam in practice. I can't imagine he won't be better at the wing then any incoming recruit as a result of that experience.

[Kedsy]

Can someone please explain why everyone is so sure that Joey Baker is going to only see spot minutes? If he didn't reclassify he would be our second highest recruit coming in (assuming he maintained his #15 ranking). He would have been a sure fire McD AA and, presumably, a year in Duke's system only made him better than playing a year in high school. He is 18 and doesn't turn 19 until September (if a quick Google search is to be believed). Putting him behind even Moore seems like an enthrallment with the unknown. Is the reasoning that since he didn't get off the bench last year he won't get off the bench next year? If K kept his redshirt would people have a different impression of his abilities?

On the one hand, I don't think everyone is so sure. I'm certainly not -- I think Joey has as good a chance as any of our other wings to earn minutes. On the other hand, I think that #15 ranking (which I think was ESPN) was probably soft. Presumably he got that ranking in the summer before his junior year, and when you drop from #15 to #41 there could be lots of reasons besides his switching classes. My guess is he would have slipped significantly in the final rankings had he remained in the 2019 class. We shouldn't look at him like a top 15 recruit.

That said, I agree with you that a lot of people are selling Joey short based on 18 mostly garbage-time minutes. In the five exhibition games in which he played, he looked pretty good, scoring 15.4 pts per 40 minutes, 6.2 rebounds per 40, 2.5 assists per 40, and 1.2 steals per 40, with an eFG% of 58.3% (69.4% true shooting %; 41.7% on threes; 100% on FTs (4 attempts)). Yeah, that was against substandard competition, but it was probably better than high school competition. He's 6'8" and can shoot, appears to be pretty good at offensive rebounding, and while it's difficult to say how good he is on defense, he didn't look lost on D either.

At this moment, we shouldn't be confident in the roles of anybody on Duke's team other than Tre, Vernon, and Matthew.

[brlftz]

I can't believe we utilized the thread title change option here...

Whoever did that is my hero. I hate that word so much

[Troublemaker]

Can someone please explain why everyone is so sure that Joey Baker is going to only see spot minutes? If he didn't reclassify he would be our second highest recruit coming in (assuming he maintained his #15 ranking). He would have been a sure fire McD AA and, presumably, a year in Duke's system only made him better than playing a year in high school. He is 18 and doesn't turn 19 until September (if a quick Google search is to be believed). Putting him behind even Moore seems like an enthrallment with the unknown. Is the reasoning that since he didn't get off the bench last year he won't get off the bench next year? If K kept his redshirt would people have a different impression of his abilities?

That's a big assumption, though. (Also, that would've only made him our third highest-ranked recruit, behind Carey and Hurt). 2018 and 2019 are considered to be similar in quality (both very weak), so I can't imagine the class translation would be so dramatic; I think he would've dropped in the 2019 rankings. That said, I wouldn't be shocked if he beat out AOC, Boogie, and Cassius for a starting spot. Duke would have huge wings again with him and Wendell starting out there.

[lotusland]

Can someone please explain why everyone is so sure that Joey Baker is going to only see spot minutes? If he didn't reclassify he would be our second highest recruit coming in (assuming he maintained his #15 ranking). He would have been a sure fire McD AA and, presumably, a year in Duke's system only made him better than playing a year in high school. He is 18 and doesn't turn 19 until September (if a quick Google search is to be believed). Putting him behind even Moore seems like an enthrallment with the unknown. Is the reasoning that since he didn't get off the bench last year he won't get off the bench next year? If K kept his redshirt would people have a different impression of his abilities?

It’s because he played this year but didn’t set the world on fire. Recruits who’ve never played college ball are always assumed to be awesome until
they play.

[Troublemaker]

It’s because he played this year but didn’t set the world on fire. Recruits who’ve never played college ball are always assumed to be awesome until
they play.

I'm not sure this really describes the board well. I think we have appropriate skepticism of freshmen. Maybe too much at times, actually, when talking about the top-10 recruits since they usually turn out to be good players.

[CDu]

I'm not sure this really describes the board well. I think we have appropriate skepticism of freshmen. Maybe too much at times, actually, when talking about the top-10 recruits since they usually turn out to be good players.

Yeah, I think we have a mix of all sorts:
- some overvalue returning role players and undervalue recruits
- some overvalue recruits and undervalue returning players
- some have a pretty good understanding of which recruits are day-one starters and which recruits are coin flips
- some overvalue every Duke player
- some undervalue Duke players relative to other programs