Welcome to Duke, Jaylen Blakes!

[revmel53]

I'm so thankful we are getting players like Jaylen. He has great passion, and has a chance to work into leadership.

[jv001]

I'm so thankful we are getting players like Jaylen. He has great passion, and has a chance to work into leadership.

I'm thankful as well. From all I've read about Jaylen, he's a tough kid that wants to play good defense. My only worry is he plays well in the minutes he gets but transfers to a school he knows will give him more playing time.

GoDuke!

[sagegrouse]

I'm thankful as well. From all I've read about Jaylen, he's a tough kid that wants to play good defense. My only worry is he plays well in the minutes he gets but transfers to a school he knows will give him more playing time.

GoDuke!

Your post is the latest manifestation of the adage -- "Every silver cloud has a gray lining."

Kindly,
Sage
'The first I remember were the lamentations on the Board after Ted Roof's first team in 2003 beat GT and UNC, fearful that he would leave for a stronger football program'

[Kedsy]

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 Rank	G	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.

While I agree that if Jaylen Blakes ends up as good as the guys you list, he could very well get 15+ mpg next year, I think you're still not giving enough weight to competition on the roster. Here's a list of the number of Top 40 players on the rosters of the 13 players you mention:

2016 SMU (Shake Milton): 1
2007 Maryland (Greivis Vasquez): 2
2014 Pitt (Michael Young): 0
2015 Gonzaga (Domantas Sabonis): 1
2014 Villanova (Josh Hart): 0
2010 Texas A&M (Khris Middleton): 0
2013 Mich St (Denzel Valentine): 4
2016 Tex A&M (Admon Gilder): 4
2016 Villanova (Mikal Bridges): 1
2011 Syracuse (C.J. Fair): 2
2013 Louisville (Montrezl Harrell): 3
2014 Kansas (Frank Mason): 6
2009 Kansas (Markieff Morris): 2
2022 Duke (Jaylen Blakes): 7

Nine of the 13 players were on rosters with two (2) or fewer Top 40 guys to compete with. Three other teams had 3 or 4 Top 40 guys. Only 2014 Kansas had anywhere close to the seven (7) Top 40 players that will be on Duke's roster next season. Mason got 16 mpg on that Kansas team, suggesting a similar amount of playing time is possible for Jaylen if he can beat out two top 40 guys like Mason did, but the likelihood of Jaylen being as good as Frank Mason as a freshman is probably a lot less than the 15% or 28% that you're tossing out there.

[House P]

While I agree that if Jaylen Blakes ends up as good as the guys you list, he could very well get 15+ mpg next year, I think you're still not giving enough weight to competition on the roster. Here's a list of the number of Top 40 players on the rosters of the 13 players you mention:

2016 SMU (Shake Milton): 1
2007 Maryland (Greivis Vasquez): 2
2014 Pitt (Michael Young): 0
2015 Gonzaga (Domantas Sabonis): 1
2014 Villanova (Josh Hart): 0
2010 Texas A&M (Khris Middleton): 0
2013 Mich St (Denzel Valentine): 4
2016 Tex A&M (Admon Gilder): 4
2016 Villanova (Mikal Bridges): 1
2011 Syracuse (C.J. Fair): 2
2013 Louisville (Montrezl Harrell): 3
2014 Kansas (Frank Mason): 6
2009 Kansas (Markieff Morris): 2
2022 Duke (Jaylen Blakes): 7

Nine of the 13 players were on rosters with two (2) or fewer Top 40 guys to compete with. Three other teams had 3 or 4 Top 40 guys. Only 2014 Kansas had anywhere close to the seven (7) Top 40 players that will be on Duke's roster next season. Mason got 16 mpg on that Kansas team, suggesting a similar amount of playing time is possible for Jaylen if he can beat out two top 40 guys like Mason did, but the likelihood of Jaylen being as good as Frank Mason as a freshman is probably a lot less than the 15% or 28% that you're tossing out there.

You raise an excellent point about Duke’s talent depth vs a typical top 20 team. Thanks for digging up the numbers.

While a typical top 20 team may not have as many highly rated recruits as Duke, they likely have several very good players. While I am hopeful, I am not entirely confident that Duke's 2022 backcourt of Jeremy, Wendell, and Trevor will be head and shoulders better than the average Top 20 backcourt.

I honestly don’t know the best objective way to project what role a specific player on Team X would have if they played for Team Y, especially if Team Y is Duke. I am open to suggestions if anyone has any good ideas how to do this.

Looking at advanced stats is probably a decent way to start, so I did some poking around on basketball-reference.com and Torvik’s site. It seems that it is fairly common for borderline Top 100 guys to have advanced stats (Box +/-, Win Shares, Win Shares/40, PER, PRPG!) as Freshmen which are in line of what would be expected from a typical Top 15-25 recruit. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about these stats to know which ones might be most appropriate and which ones might be biased in favor of guys who played for less talented teams.

Another option is to look at All Conference Teams. In the past three seasons, there have been 42 guys ranked 85-100 in the RSCI who played for major conference teams. Of these 42 guys, 10 made their conference’s All-Freshman team. Two more players received the 6^th most votes. So, ~25% of recent borderline Top 100 players made their conference’s All-Freshman team. That is certainly higher than I expected. I could be way off, but my gut feeling is that a guy who was good enough to make a major conference All-Freshman team would stand a decent chance (say 50%) of competing against Wendell Moore, Jeremy Roach, Trevor Keels, Joey Baker, and Theo John for a spot as Duke’s 6^th or 7^th man.

Here’s a summary of the advanced stats of the 12 All-Freshman team nominees compared with last year’s stats for select players.

PLAYER
RSCI
TEAM
G
MPG
PRPG!
BPM
PER
WS
WS/40
ORTG
D-RTG
AdjEM
Awards

Tyrell Terry (20)
88
Stanford
31
32.3
7.7
5.2
19.3
4.5
0.179
106
88.6
17.4
Pac12 All-Freshman

Bennedict Mathurin (21)
91
Arizona
26
24.8
6.1
6.6
20
2.9
0.181
121.6
95.4
26.2
Pac12 All-Freshman

Jaden Shackelford (20)
98
Alabama
31
28.9
6.1
4.3
18.3
3.2
0.14
113.4
101.2
12.2
SEC All-Freshman

Jaden Ivey (21)
87
Purdue
23
24.0
5.7
5.5
18.2
1.9
0.136
103.2
91.4
11.8
B10 All-Freshman

A.J. Lawson (19)
91
South Carolina
28
30.1
5.6
2.8
15.9
2.2
0.102
98.4
98
0.4
SEC All-Freshman

Derek Culver (19)
85
West Virginia
26
26.7
5.4
2.6
18.7
1.7
0.097
97.5
95.6
1.9
B12 All-Freshman

Jared Butler (19)
95
Baylor
34
26.7
5.3
2.8
14.7
2.6
0.116
106.6
98.7
7.9
B12 All-Freshman

K.D. Johnson (21)
87
Georgia
16
22.4
5.1
3.9
18.9
1.1
0.126
98.9
94
4.9
SEC All-Freshman

James Akinjo (19)
89
Georgetown
33
30.8
5
-0.1
14.4
2.3
0.09
100.3
103
-2.7
Big East All-Freshman

Jaime Jaquez Jr. (20)
96
UCLA
30
26.4
4.8
4.2
17.3
2.7
0.132
106.3
96.4
9.9
Pac12 All-Freshman (6th)

Kadary Richmond (21)
89
Syracuse
28
21.0
4.2
5.5
18.4
1.9
0.126
103.6
92.4
11.2
ACC Freshman of Year (6th)

Tari Eason (21)
93
Cincinnati
23
19.6
3.5
2.2
18.3
1
0.093
90.8
90
0.8
AAC All-Freshman
















Average RSCI 15-25 Freshman




4.5
2.8



102.8
93
9.8

















Wendell Moore Jr. (21)
25
Duke
24
27.2
4.9
1.6
15.2
1.7
0.104
92.8
91.1
1.7


Jeremy Roach (21)
20
Duke
24
27.1
4.2
-0.8
11.7
1.3
0.079
102.1
101.7
0.4


Joey Baker (21)
37
Duke
23
11.5
1
-2.7
6.6
0.1
0.013
83.2
100
-16.8


Theo John (21)

Marquette
27
26.3
4.9
3.9
16.6
2.1
0.121
106.7
94.5
12.2


Wendell Moore Jr. (20)
25
Duke
25
23.6
3.9
0.5
11.7
1.4
0.096
92.8
91.1
1.7

I should point out that these Borderline Top 100 All-Freshman team guys all played for worse teams than what we expect from Duke 2021-22. I don’t have any great ideas for translating how much an All-Freshman team player on a less talented team would play for Duke in 2022, so it is possible that many of these guys could end up deep on the bench for Duke.

One final thing. Coach K seems to like defensive-minded guards. If Jalen plays solid defense and is good enough to make a major conference All-Freshman team, I suspect he will be on the court a fair bit for Duke - even if he ends up being the 4^th best guard on the roster.

[Kedsy]

One final thing. Coach K seems to like defensive-minded guards. If Jalen plays solid defense and is good enough to make a major conference All-Freshman team, I suspect he will be on the court a fair bit for Duke - even if he ends up being the 4^th best guard on the roster.

Yeah, ultimately we'll just have to see how good he is. Coach K is only going to regularly play 7, maybe 8 guys. Something that perhaps sets him apart from the coaches of some of the other players on your list (I haven't done that research and don't plan to).

Which means that if Jaylen can outplay Joey Baker and become the 8th man (4th perimeter guy), he could earn 8 to 15 mpg (probably more towards the lower end, but you never know). If he can outplay Baker plus one of our other guards, there's a path to 20+ mpg.

The thing is, the most probable reason why a guy ranks around #100 is because he's not good enough to be an major conference all-freshman player. If that's the case with Jaylen Blakes, then he won't play much. And as we've been going back and forth about, even if he is that good, he'll only play if he's also good enough to be Duke's 7th or 8th man.