Roach projected to be our leader in mpg seems very accurate and very unfortunate, since he's at most the fifth best player on the team.
Roach: 33 mpg
Banchero: 32 mpg
Moore: 30 mpg
Williams: 30 mpg
Griffin: 28 mpg
Keels: 22 mpg
Baker: 13 mpg
John: 7 mpg
Blakes: 4 mpg
Other: <1 mpg
I'm not real bullish on this group offensively. I think turnovers are still going to be a problem (though maybe not as bad as last season) and perimeter shooting might still be a struggle. Hopefully Roach will have improved in both areas. He and Moore are probably the only ones capable of a primary ball handling responsibility in this rotation and that leaves us thin there. Moore is never going to be a reliable perimeter threat but I think there is good chance that as a junior he'll be less mistake prone handling the ball. Griffin appears to be more of an attack the basket type player and likely not someone who will be spotting up from the corner. Moore and Griffin on the floor at the same time isn't going to spread the floor. That leaves Roach, Keels, Banchero, and Baker as our perimeter threats which appears to be a bit of a mixed bag. Baker seems to struggle with game pressure, Keels... we really have no idea, and Banchero is going to be needed around the paint... unless he's a senior Ryan Kelly/Matthew Hurt type perimeter shooter. Sort of like 2019, this group may be better staying out of the half court. But that could also be problematic... like we saw with 2019.
Defensively I'm much more enticed. With the sort of size, experience, and athleticism that exists in this rotation I think this has a chance to be one of the stronger groups defensively that we've seen in a while. Much of that could depend on how much Roach has improved on D. But with the likes of Moore, Banchero, Griffin, and... of course... Williams... I think the talent is there to defend the most elite offenses in the country. It remains to be seen if the discipline exists to sustain throughout the season. I think there is some realistic optimism here.
Last edited by jipops; 05-13-2021 at 08:49 PM.
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Roach projected to be our leader in mpg seems very accurate and very unfortunate, since he's at most the fifth best player on the team.
The first key to minutes is can the team have competitive scrimmages...
Roach v Blakes
Griffin v Keels
Moore v Baker
Banchero v Jones
Williams v John
The front court may not be a good match-up, so in scrimmages Banchero and Williams may be on opposite teams.
After the coaches will watch who is playing the best and most importantly who is playing the best defense.
Given we finally have a tape showing that an incoming freshman, Griffin, can play defense and seeing how Williams played at the end of the year...They are definitely starting and getting a lot of minutes.
My fear is that defenses will pack it in and try to create turnovers when we drive the lane and make Duke prove they can make shots. Think of freshmen Tre, Jack and JGold standing alone on the three point line. So ideally we’d play fast to avoid half court sets but we need ball handlers and court vision for that. I do think we’ll see Wendell, Roach and perhaps AJ trying to initiate offense before the defense is set to create some easy baskets for trailers and cutters.
I’d like to see us go zone from the jump with an occasional M2M set. Don’t think we’ve had freshman bigs who could guard the pick and roll effectively. Teams that can move the ball well and make shots may be a problem for us. I could see Joey or Keels playing some minutes with Wendell and Roach just to loosen up the D for for Williams and Banchero or Griffin at the 4 spot.
Like all the young teams we will probably have some ugly games filled with poor shooting and turnovers early. Hopefully we can win some of those ugly close games this year as the guys learn to play together and Coach K figures out how to make the pieces fit.
Sorry for leaving out a minutes forecast but the idk anything about the freshmen. Also the pieces don’t fit well so this might be a year when letting“ the best 5 play” or playing “positionless” basketball will work. This isn’t Zion, RJ and Cam with Tre driving the ship(and that team had shooting and turnover woes) so I just don’t think we’ll be able the roll the ball out and let them play this year. I’ll enjoy watching them struggle and figure it out though.
I'm a little more bullish on this team than you seem to be and I won't enjoy watching them struggle. But like you said, watching them work it out will be fun if they do have struggles. As for shooting, I think a lot depends on improvement from Roach and Moore. Plus, having a confident Joey Baker at the beginning of the season will help a lot. From what I've read and seen in videos it looks like Banchero and Keels are good shooters but I have no idea about AJ shooting the ball from the perimeter. His form looks good in the videos. However, we don't know how the added distance on three pointers will affect the freshmen. Ball handling looks promising with Banchero, Griffin, Keels, and maybe improved Moore and Roach. On paper the defense should be good with Griffin and Banchero having good reputations as defenders. Williams showed last season he can block shots, Moore has impressed me with his defense and Roach should be better this season. I'm glad the team will have a pre-season to practice and get some of the kinks worked out this season. Hopefully that will minimize the struggles.
GoDuke!
I am more upbeat about this team offensively and disagree that the pieces don't fit.
Roach is small and wasn't as much of a playmaker as we needed him to be last year. He forced a lot of action, especially early in the year when we were trying to run with Jalen Johnson in the lineup. But he's quick and strong and has the handle you need to play the position. He also showed a solid midrange game, and I expect his so-so 3PT% to improve at least a little. I don't think a jump from 31% to 35% is too optimistic.
We also have an exceptional prototypical center and a 6'10 forward with a monster motor who can create and shoot -- not just score at the rim.
I agree that the wings are more of a crap shoot offensively, but there seems to be some pretty good scoring potential among Keels, Moore and Griffin as a group. If even one of those guys can hit from 3 consistently (38-40%) we will have an amazing diversity of scoring potential. And that's ignoring whatever Baker can give us off the bench -- which could be at least something.
I don't really like the 2019 comparison because the frontcourt was just so different on that team. As amazing as Zion is/was, at 6'7 we couldn't really post him up in the half court if teams packed it in (flashback to the last 5 minutes v. Michigan State). Williams and Banchero solve that problem and should be able to score or pass out of the post against almost any defense.
It also seems to me that our wings are really physically strong and ought to be able to play through contact much better than last year's team, which was weak with the ball and got stripped on the way to the rim a lot. I expect us to shoot a lot of free throws this year. Hopefully we can make them.
Very much agree.
Tre and JGold - love them both and their contributions - both were quite limited from 3pt, especially in 2019. Remember UCF? Tre was literally unguarded. Roach is a much better shooter.
I think both AJ and Keels have similar (at least in the ballpark) shooting expectations as Cam carried in 2019. But there are two of them... If one struggles, not as challenging as when Cam didn't quite pan out to be quite as consistent as we all had hoped. And, there will be other threats, like Banchero and Baker and Roach. JJ Redick is not walking in that door, but we won't be putting out a team of 1.5 shooters like we have had for 3 years running.
And as you point out, we are much bigger, stronger. Roach is short (for D1...) but solid. Everyone else is big and strong and athletic. Will be a massive change. Very much getting excited about the team.
It is certainly possible we will be below-average at both. But aside from this past season we have typically been top-25 in 3pt% defense. So I would suspect we will again be good at defending the 3.
I am less confident in our overall 3pt% offense. I suspect that will be a bit more like the past two years.
Except Hurt propped up last year’s percentage and we have no one who projects at that level this year. I think Moore’s shot looks pretty good and he seemed to have have more confidence and success as the season progressed. I hope his ceiling is like Junior year Battier level 3pt shooting this year. I leave to the stats guys to correct me if he doesn’t project that well. I think we need two legit threats on the court most of the time. It’s easy to pack it in but still take away one shooter. Even if Griffin and Banchero can shoot 36% on open threes I’d probably still let them hoist away with minimum resistance and I doubt they shoot that well with significant volume. That’s 3 guys in the starting lineup that will probably be left unguarded outside the arc leaving the lane pretty crowded. When guys put the ball on the floor I’d expect a lot help defenders poking at the ball and trying to take charges
I am confident that we won’t have anyone approach Hurt’s %s next year. But I am also confident that we will have more quality depth next year. Besides Hurt, nobody else who took 20+ attempts shot better than 34.1%. So the team as a whole shot 35.1%. I think we will have a bunch of guys in the 34-40% range, and I suspect we won’t have any liabilities from 3 next year. And the gravity that Banchero and Williams bring will provide easier looks for our 3pt shooters.
I don’t think we will be a great 3pt shooting team. But I think we will probably be a 35-36% 3pt shooting team with 4-5 decent but not superlative shooters, which should be fine.
Seems a lot like MP3’s junior year, where his principal role was as a backup to Okafor. I think they played together a handful of minutes, but largely MP3 subbed in to give Okafor a breather.
Using that as a comp, Okafor played 30mpg and MP3 9.6mpg.
Now, Okafor was a superlative offensive player, top 3 pick, ACC POY, 1st team AA. I do not expect Williams to be quite at that level (though I’d certainly take it!) So maybe you bump Theo’s minutes a bit there...but I also see Paolo easily sliding to the 5 (and its possible Paolo is at the Okafor level...I certainly expect him to be our best player and in the hunt for ACC POY/top 5 pick).
So those two forces are probably a wash and I’d peg Theo at ~10mpg for purposes of projections.
Mark isn't Jahil, but it's also important to remember that he'll be a sophomore with a solid amount of freshman year experience (especially down the stretch) to draw on. I think you've actually drawn a very nice comparison, and that a 30/10 split on average would probably be what we'll see on average over the course of the season, with it likely trending more towards 25/15 early in the season and 35/5 in big games.
I don't doubt we'll see some of Paolo at the 5, but I think John was brought in partially so that we wouldn't have to rely on that too heavily, especially given Paolo's statements in the past that he doesn't see himself as a 5.
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I don't know about all that. A solid amount of freshman experience for Mark consisted of 350 minutes played, half of which came in the last six games of the year. Jahlil Okafor played 1150 minutes -- over triple the amount that Mark did. Now that, to me, constitutes a solid amount of freshman experience.
Jahlil "only" averaged 30 mpg. You really think Mark is going to average as many minutes, or more, than the guy who -- as a freshman not a soph I understand that - but still Mark is going to play as much or more than a guy who was the ACC scoring leader, ACC Player of the Year, and a consensus first team All-American, along with lots and lots of other accomplishments and accolades? I hope you're right in that Mark earns and can handle that many minutes, but I have a hard time seeing that, especially if Theo John can play.
30 mpg might be a few minutes into overly-ambitious for Williams. It's hard to come up with a good, recent Duke analog for Mark Williams. Shelden Williams went from around 19 mpg as a freshman to around 26 mpg as a soph. But that was in 2004. Josh McRoberts averaged 35 mpg as soph in 2007. But he was the consensus no. 1 recruit in his class.
More recently, Wendell Carter averaged 27 mpg in 2018. He was a freshman, of course, but also a top-10 recruit. Is a sophomore Mark Williams going to warrant more PT than a freshman Wendell Carter?
The best analog might be Amile Jefferson. He averaged 13 mpg as a freshman in 2013. But a lot of that was at the 4 when Ryan Kelly was out with a foot injury. Jefferson averaged 23 mpg as an under-sized 5 as a sophomore in 2014. I suspect Mark Williams will get more than that.
Marshall Plumlee averaged 30.5 mpg in 2016 and Williams is a better long-term prospect. But Plumlee was a fifth-year senior in 2016 and wouldn't have played anywhere near that much had Jefferson stayed healthy.
So, again, I'm not sure I see a great comparison here. My best guess is that Williams should be good for about 25-28 mpg, with foul trouble the likely limiting factor. But that's hardly a rock-solid prediction.
I don’t think comparing Mark to Jahlil will help determine very much (though it’s also possible that Mark is as good at defense as Jahlil was on offense, in which case his overall value might be greater whether he wins POY or not).
Instead, the issue will be how much “separation” there is between Mark and Theo. If (as I suspect) there is a lot, then in big games Mark will get as many minutes as he can handle, limited only by fatigue and foul trouble. In that case, 30/10 sounds like a reasonable split. If, on the other hand, there doesn’t seem to be much separation, then it may end up being closer to 25/15, or even closer (like 23/17). My guess is Mark will play in the 27 to 30 range, trending toward 30 by the end of the season, with Theo getting 8 to 12 and Paolo filling in the rest.
It’s also possible (though personally I hope not) that K decides that going small for significant periods is best, with three guards, plus AJ at PF and Paolo at C. If, for example, he does that for 15 minutes, then Mark could be down to 20 to 25 minutes, with Theo playing minimal minutes in big games.
Hopefully, K could go offense/defense in this situation, getting Williams on the floor for defense and getting him out for someone like Baker or Keels when Duke has the ball. Of course, there's always a risk of not getting a clock stoppage when you need it and having the wrong lineup on the floor. But it's pretty common to sit a big late with the ball and the lead, not just for a better foul shooter but also for a better ball handler.
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Personally I'm not overly worried about Mark's FT shooting. He had clear struggles last season, but he also showed that the fundamentals are in place (he made a handful of beautiful looking top of the key jumpers when left wide open). With a full offseason I don't see any reason why he can't be a serviceable FT shooter this season (which for a big I'd put at 65/70% plus), with the potential in place for a higher ceiling at the line.
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