Excellent post, House P. Generally speaking, a bit more optimistic than I would have expected.
What role will Jaylen Blakes will play on next year's team? Duke hasn't recruited many borderline Top 100 prospects like Blakes recently, so there aren't many Duke comps to use as a guide.
Therefore, I thought I would look at how players with similar rankings performed at other Power 6+ conference programs*. Unfortunately, basketball-reference.com only lists the top 100 Freshmen each year, so I had to settle for looking at players ranked 85-100 instead of say, 85-115 which is probably more representative of Jaylen's ranking. In fairness, there probably isn't much dropoff between 85-100 and 101-115. For example, in terms of likelihood of eventually playing in the NBA (future post coming), there isn't much dropoff in the top 100 once you get past the top 50 or so players.
Let's start with Freshman performance.
Of the 172 players ranked 85-100 who committed to Power 6+ programs between 2006 and 2017,
- 69% averaged 10+ mpg as Freshmen
- 47% averaged 15+ mpg as Freshmen
- 33% averaged 20+ mpg as Freshmen
- 17% averaged 25+ mpg as Freshmen
- 4% averaged 30+ mpg as Freshmen
Of the 47 players ranked 85-100 by the RSCI who played for Top 20 KenPom teams
- 49% averaged 10+ mpg as Freshmen
- 34% averaged 15+ mpg as Freshmen
- 19% averaged 20+ mpg as Freshmen
- 4% averaged 25+ mpg as Freshmen
As far as I can tell, no player ranked 85-100 between 2006 and 2017 went straight to the NBA following his Freshman season.
Based on this, I might predict the following for Jaylen next season
~15% chance of playing a major role (15+ minutes in nearly every game)
~35% chance of playing a minor role (playing at least a few minutes in nearly every game, occasionally playing 15+ minutes)
~50% chance of being primarily a bench/practice player (rarely playing more than two or three mins in competitive games)
Longer term, guys ranked 85-100 typically make an impact at Power 6+ schools.
Of the 172 players ranked 85-100 by the RSCI who committed to Power 6+ programs between 2006 and 2017
- 29% eventually transferred to a mid-major program, or never became a regular starter at a Power 6+ school
- 71% played their entire career at a Power 6+ program and started at least 10% of their career games
- 67% played their entire career at a Power 6+ program and started at least 25% of their career games
- 52% played their entire career at a Power 6+ program and started at least 50% of their career games
- 27% played their entire career at a Power 6+ program and started at least 75% of their career games
Additionally, 20% (38/193) of the guys ranked 85-100 by the RSCI between 2006 and 2017, either went on to either play in the NBA or got drafted by the NBA.
Based on this, I would predict the following longer-term for Jaylen
~30% chance of eventually becoming an excellent Power 6+ player
~40% of eventually becoming a solid ACC caliber player
~30% chance of being a career back-up (if he stays in the ACC)
Sadly, if Jaylen eventually becomes a solid ACC caliber player or better, there is no guarantee that this will be at Duke.
If anyone is interested, I could post a list of all the players ranked 85-100 along with their Freshman mpg/ppg.
*For the purposes of this exercise, I defined a Power 6+ program as any school from the ACC, Big 10, Big East, Big 12, Pac 12, or SEC plus Top 50 caliber programs such as Gonzaga, Cincinnati, Memphis, etc from non-Power 6 conferences.
Last edited by House P; 06-12-2021 at 01:37 PM.
Excellent post, House P. Generally speaking, a bit more optimistic than I would have expected.
I don’t expect him to see the floor much this season. But he could potentially be the most important player for us in leading the transition out of the K era.
Great post HP, as usual. I think you’re especially spot on regarding Jaylen’s potential long-term impact.
Regarding next season, in order to play a major role, he’ll have to beat out either Moore or Roach or Keels. I suppose that’s possible, but the odds have to be a lot less than the 15% you’ve posited. Similarly, to play a minor role (as you’ve defined it), he’ll have to beat out Joey Baker. Possible? Sure. But again I’d say the odds are probably less than your estimate of 35%.
Great data and analysis. I also think your final conclusion is a bit overly optimistic for Jaylen. But I hope he ends up giving us Goldwire like production on some great Duke teams. He also plays with a ton of emotion on the floor which can be a great asset if channeled in the right way.
I would hope in this era of new transfer rules, that Duke would go from its traditional 7-8 man rotation to a 10 man rotation. That’s my hope but not expectation. It could very well change with Scheyer though.
Has anyone broken the news to Blakes that his pedigree has been thoroughly studied, and we know how his career will go?
Calvinism lives!
Changing the subject a bit; Doug McNeely K’s 1st recruit and Jaylen Blakes his last. And a few stars in between😀⭐️😀.
Great post, House P. I think the other factor that leads me to your optimism is that Duke has only has 9 scholarship players for the coming season, excluding Bates Jones. He can't be any worse than the 9th-best player. For him to only get spot minutes, that would require K to start the season 8 deep before whittling down from there, for everyone above him to outplay him, and for there to be no major injuries. None of those are impossible, of course, but I think there's a 30%+ chance that Jaylen plays >200 minutes this year.
Definitely not like the last couple of years when we get frustrated K doesn't go 10- or 11-deep, nor is there a J-Rob/Henry/Brakefield to come deeper off the bench to bring a game-changing play.
Kudos to House P (from a fellow House P’er, 1977-78)
I’m impressed that basketball scouts are as accurate as they are.
Nevertheless, here’s a team that could win some games, with 247 rankings:
Jimmy Butler: NR
Draymond Green: 122
Kawhi Leonard: 50
Isaiah Thomas: 187
Russell Westbrook: 151
Damian Lillard: 214
Paul George: 193
Victor Oladipo: 136
Ja Morant: NR
Gordon Hayward: NR
Fred “this team needs a center” Kaminsky: 242
CJ “Ruined my Day” McCollum: 457
Frank, not Fred. Also missing Steph Curry from this list.
But yeah, while the rankings are a strong indicator, and historically have been a barometer for Duke, they aren't gospel in college basketball. They have been more or less gospel for Duke up until very recently, but that has been driven largely by the fact that Duke has consistently landed almost exclusively top-50 talent. If you are a sub-100 guy, it's pretty hard to crack the rotation when 2/3 of the roster is a McDonald's All-American.
It will be interesting to see with the new transfer rules and the new coaching staff how our recruiting changes. The rankings "rules" we've become accustomed to may soon become no longer relevant.
Excellent point. While Jaylen's role will be primarily defined by how good he is personally, it also depends on how he compares to the rest of Duke's roster. I based my guess of 15% primarily based on the list of similarly ranked Freshmen who played for KenPom Top 20 teams.
Of the 47 such players, here are the Top 10 in terms of mpg as Freshmen.
Player RSCI Team Season KenPom
RankG GS MPG PPG Shake Milton 89 SMU 2016 16 30 23 32.7 10.5 Greivis Vasquez 93 Maryland 2007 12 34 22 28.8 9.8 Michael Young 85 Pitt 2014 16 36 36 21.6 6.0 Domantas Sabonis 92 Gonzaga 2015 7 38 1 21.6 9.7 Josh Hart 94 Villanova 2014 11 34 1 21.4 7.8 Khris Middleton 99 Texas A&M 2010 16 34 22 20.9 7.2 Denzel Valentine 88 Michigan State 2013 10 36 15 20.8 5.0 Admon Gilder 85 Texas A&M 2016 18 37 0 20.4 7.0 Mikal Bridges 96 Villanova 2016 1 40 0 20.3 6.4 C.J. Fair 96 Syracuse 2011 13 32 0 18.6 6.4
Throw in guys like Montrezl Harrell, Frank Mason, and Markieff Morris who played >15 mpg for Top 15 teams and you get 13 guys (13/47 = 28%) who were good enough to be major contributors on Top 20 teams.
Hard to know for sure, but if Jaylen Blakes ends up being as good as these 13 guys as a Freshman, I suspect that he has a good chance of playing a significant role at Duke next season.
Of course, if Jeremy, Wendell, and Trevor end up being all-ACC caliber players next year, Jaylen could end up with a limited role even if he significantly outperforms his recruiting ranking. On the other hand, there are scenarios I'd prefer not to mention where Jaylen may be thrust into a bigger role, even if he isn't as good as the 13 guys on this list.
You may be right about this. I based my estimate primarily on the fact that ~50% of the 47 borderline Top 100 recruits mentioned above played in more than 90% of their team's games.
However, several of these guys played for teams which had less depth 1-8 than what many of us expect from Duke's 2022 team and Coach K is less likely to play 9 guys than many coaches.
In the end, guys like Kenny Kaminski, Keith Stone, Draymond Green, Svi Mykhailiuk, Korie Lucious, Dan Werner, Jon Leuer, Derrick Nix, Trevon Hughes, and Mikael Hopkins all played between 7 and 12.5 mpg for their respective teams, but there is no guarantee they would play a similar role for Duke's 2022 team.
Last edited by House P; 06-14-2021 at 12:07 PM.
This may or may not change the calculus of your conclusions (probably not), but Mikal Bridges redshirted as a freshman, so do with that what you may.
I'm generally of the opinion that judging what will happen with a Duke freshman based on similarly ranked freshmen at SMU and Pitt isn't super indicative, but as others have noted, the times they are a'changing. Perhaps judging what will happen with a Duke freshman based on what's happened historically with other Duke freshman is even a misguided (albeit entertaining offseason) exercise. Either way, I enjoyed your post and analysis.