MBB: Duke 56, Purdue 75 Post-Game Thread

[CasualObserver]

I appreciate there is math beyond my lifetime achievement abilities in all these quantitative ranking systems, but sometimes these seem to defy the intuitive. Just before Purdue, Purdue was like 16 on Kenpom and Duke 17. Post game, Purdue leaps in one game to 7, Duke falls only 3 to 20. Since the movement was driven by just one game, in my mind, Purdue performed lights out relative to 350 other teams by beating Duke by a healthy margin, yet Duke’s performance was not proportionately penalized.

Further, Gonzaga got trashed by Purdue by a similar point spread….is now sitting at 5-2 (while Duke is 6-2) and Gonzaga is still up around 9.

Just nothing intuitive for me about that.

And just for odd coincidence sake, Ohio State now holds the same one position up place on Duke just before the game at #19.

Weird stuff this math.

[whereinthehellami]

Here is a short evaluation of Whitehead's high school play. Notice that he is listed as 6'5" and if so may be best as a shooting guard or small forward. Maybe we just need to find the right usage for him to start to see his brilliance.

The 6-foot-5, 185-pound senior guard had led the Eagles to a 19-4 record and a berth in the Geico High School Nationals tournament at the time of his selection. Whitehead averaged 17.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.4 assists through 23 games. The 2022 Naismith High School Player of the Year, Whitehead is also a McDonald’s All-American Game selection. He is ranked as the nation’s No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2022 by Rivals.com.

Here is his write-up on 247 Sports: Solid size for a wing. Has quick twitch athleticism. Fast with the basketball. Loves to attack the rim, but has a smooth jumper. Three-level scorer. Has a great pull up jumper going left. Solid ball handler and passer who plays with awareness and instincts. Rebounds his position well. Has tremendous potential as a versatile defender.

Note they have him as 6-6. He looks at least 6-6 to me but with a strong build and strong athleticism.
When he gets back to full strength and gets a full head of steam going downhill, he is the kind of player you get out of the way on unless you want to be on a poster hanging over some millennials bed.

[Steven43]

Because many on this Board have a fateful wish that we only play 6-7 players and are projecting their wishes onto their predictions. (Not really, but you wonder).

Moi, I believe that (a) Jon & Co. are determined to do things differently from K (no quick hook, for one) and (b) signaled their intention to play a lot of players when Young and Grandison were added to a reasonably full roster.

I prefer to consistently play 8-9 guys, which is similar to the way UNC used to do it under Roy. And I think Ryan Young was a very good pick-up for Coach Scheyer; I’m glad he’s getting solid minutes (15-20), and would like that to continue. I like Grandison, also, and would prefer he get at least 15 mpg.

But this roster is loaded, so that might be a bit much.

[azzefkram]

It's funny; I remember an identical turn of events for Lively in that game.

I am not sure exactly what this says about the ol' eye test, but I'm pretty sure it's not good.

I think in aggregate Young is a much better offensive player and Lively a better defensive player, with the upside to be much better defensively. In aggregate, Young has been the better player overall. Hopefully Lively's offense gets slightly less abysmal, and his defense gets substantially better. In that sense, he could/should overtake Young overall. But I don't see a realistic scenario where Lively is the better offensive player of the two this year.

I can definitely see a realistic scenario where Dereck is the better offensive player of the two this year. Ryan's ORTG against better competition is only 102.9. Granted Dereck's is 77.8, but we are only talking about 8 shots from a guy coming off of an injury. More practice and distance from the injury, and I think we will see a better Dereck.

Ryan will always be the more skilled, but I am not certain that he will be better offensive player. Mark wasn't blessed with an abundance of skill as a freshman, but he turned in a really good year offensively (defensively as well). If Dereck (and Duke) can tap into his athleticism, I think Dereck will be a better offensive player than Ryan.

[kshepinthehouse]

I am not sure exactly what this says about the ol' eye test, but I'm pretty sure it's not good.



I can definitely see a realistic scenario where Dereck is the better offensive player of the two this year. Ryan's ORTG against better competition is only 102.9. Granted Dereck's is 77.8, but we are only talking about 8 shots from a guy coming off of an injury. More practice and distance from the injury, and I think we will see a better Dereck.

Ryan will always be the more skilled, but I am not certain that he will be better offensive player. Mark wasn't blessed with an abundance of skill as a freshman, but he turned in a really good year offensively (defensively as well). If Dereck (and Duke) can tap into his athleticism, I think Dereck will be a better offensive player than Ryan.

From memory, I believe Lively has 3 shot attempts that weren’t dunks. One jump hook in the Purdue game that he airballed and two threes they clanged off rim also in the Purdue game. He really has no offensive game to speak of so I’m not sure how you think he’ll get there this year.

[azzefkram]

From memory, I believe Lively has 3 shot attempts that weren’t dunks. One jump hook in the Purdue game that he airballed and two threes they clanged off rim also in the Purdue game. He really has no offensive game to speak of so I’m not sure how you think he’ll get there this year.

The same way Mark Williams did as a freshman. Mark took 74 out of his 101 shots at the rim.

[Kedsy]

I grouped Oregon State with the other P6 schools because we will be playing P6 schools the rest of the way until the NCAA tournament, save for one more game against an OOC patsy. So Oregon State is part of that mix. Some will be very bad, some will be very good. We played very poorly against Oregon St. So I don't think it's appropriate to discard that data point as meaningless. I would argue it's more relevant to the team's status the rest of the season than the games against non-P6 opponents, all of which were home games. Because it's a P6 opponent, and it wasn't a home game (we'll be adding a bunch of P6 opponents and road games once ACC play starts).

But even if you discard the Oregon St game, we haven't played like a top-15/20 team on average in the other 3 games. We've played like a team in the mid-30s, with one very nice win, one awful loss, and one performance in the #20-25 range against Kansas. So if you want to group the Oregon St game with the other bad teams, we've played like a top-15/20ish team against bad opponents (because the Oregon State game was a performance on par with teams in the 250 range and somewhat weighs down the great results of the 4 games in Cameron) and like a team in the mid-30s against good opponents. In other words, like a top-25/30 team overall.

Aren't you the one who's always harping about small samples? If adding one game (Oregon State) to our "B" list of opponents changes our profile from that of a top 5/10 team to that of a top 15/20 team, then probably we shouldn't be drawing any conclusions about our overall performance. Similarly, if the Purdue game changes our "A" list profile from top 10-ish to mid-30s, we probably shouldn't be able to draw any conclusions about that, either.

I admit I am also guilty of drawing conclusions (saying we have played like a "pretty good" team in the 15 to 20 range) but at least I was attempting to use the biggest possible sample. Ultimately, I don't think we know all that much about how good Duke is right now. Certainly not about how good Duke will be in a few months. So I'll leave it at that.

Finally, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I still don't see how Oregon State's membership in the Pac 12 makes that data point any more meaningful than, say, Jacksonville, which Torvik ranks as #113 in the country (compared to Oregon State at #276).

[CDu]

The same way Mark Williams did as a freshman. Mark took 74 out of his 101 shots at the rim.

Williams was a notably better offensive player in high school than Lively, though. As a soon to be senior, Wiliams averaged 14 ppg in the EYBL summer league. As a senior, he averaged 23 ppg. Lively averaged just 8 ppg in the EYBL before his senior year, and just 14 ppg in his senior year.

Williams showed a burgeoning midrange game as a freshman too, along with a decent touch around the rim and using the glass in the post. Lively has essentially airballed anything that wasn't a dunk (his 2 3pt attempts hit the backboard instead of the rim). It doesn't feel like Lively is going to be as good offensively as Williams was. Hopefully he gets there. But nothing about his high school career or his brief Duke career appears to suggest he will do so.

Lively's value is most likely to come on the other end, where he should hopefully not be a stiff on switches and hopefully will be a big-time shotblocker. He blocked a lot of shots in the EYBL and in high school, and his current block percentage mirrors that of freshman Mark Williams. So I feel like that is where he is going to contribute, along with the occasional lob dunks and putbacks. But I don't anticipate an impactful offensive game from him.

[Kedsy]

The same way Mark Williams did as a freshman. Mark took 74 out of his 101 shots at the rim.

Mark Williams, even as a freshman, had a surprisingly good back-to-the-basket game. Not with great footwork and crafty moves like Ryan Young, but he was able to create space for himself inside and if he got the ball near the basket he converted a very high percentage. His baskets were nowhere near all lob finishes and offensive putbacks the way Dereck Lively's have been so far.

I would also note that Ryan Young's shot attempts have been 94.4% at the rim so far this season, but I can't imagine Dereck scoring in a similar manner as Ryan.

All that said, we don't need Lively to be as proficient a scorer as Young. He just has to get more involved on offense and become a force on defense.

[CDu]

Aren't you the one who's always harping about small samples? If adding one game (Oregon State) to our "B" list of opponents changes our profile from that of a top 5/10 team to that of a top 15/20 team, then probably we shouldn't be drawing any conclusions about our overall performance. Similarly, if the Purdue game changes our "A" list profile from top 10-ish to mid-30s, we probably shouldn't be able to draw any conclusions about that, either.

So use the entire sample of 8 games, but use the correct assessment: somewhere in the bottom-20s or top-30s, not top-15/20.

I admit I am also guilty of drawing conclusions (saying we have played like a "pretty good" team in the 15 to 20 range) but at least I was attempting to use the biggest possible sample. Ultimately, I don't think we know all that much about how good Duke is right now. Certainly not about how good Duke will be in a few months. So I'll leave it at that.

But they haven't played like a team in the 15 to 20 range even in that 8 game sample. That's my point. I agree with using a bigger sample, but the assessment of that 8-game sample wasn't correct.

I completely agree they should get better. My point is simply that they aren't playing like a top-15/20 team right now, and thus "getting better" doesn't inherently puts us roughly where we want to be (which was the logical implication of your "their playing like a top-15/20 team now, and they are going to get better" statement). I think getting better could range from improving to become a top-25 team, or it could mean we get to that top-15/20ish team, or it could mean getting to a top-10 team, or in the best case even better than that.

[Kedsy]

So use the entire sample of 8 games, but use the correct assessment: somewhere in the bottom-20s or top-30s, not top-15/20.

OK. I did what you suggest, using Torvik's ratings. If I did it correctly (not sure I did), then you are correct in that our rating with the pre-season bias removed is #32 so far.

BUT, our Torvik rating the day before we played Purdue was #20. So I'll amend my statement to say, we were playing like a top 15/20 team prior to the Purdue game and then we had a bad game.

FWIW, UNC is ranked #46 in the same Torvik sample that has us at #32, but I believe we're much more likely than they are to improve as time moves on.

In the end, I still think there haven't been enough games played to assess how good each team is (even UNC). I'll stick with my assessment that Duke has been a pretty good team so far, with a great deal of potential upward mobility.

[DukieInBrasil]

I am not sure Dereck has to improve to be a net positive on defense over Ryan. In the games against the tougher competition (Kansas, Xavier, and Purdue), Dereck has double the defensive rebounds (6-3), triple the steals (3-1), and 5 blocks (5-0) in roughly the same amount of minutes played. The ol' eye test looks better for Dereck as well.

I expect Dereck to do better on the offensive end. The guards can do a better job of getting him the ball in spots where he can do damage, and he can do a better job of making himself a target.

Ryan is more skilled, but his lack of athleticism is a huge drawback. I remember a sequence from the Purdue game. Ryan corrals an offensive rebound (hurrah) in traffic under the basket. Instead of taking it back up, he tries to shuffle the ball off to a guard in the lane. The ball is picked off by Purdue (boo) and taken the other way for an easy transition basket (double-boo). Dereck has a better chance of taking that offensive rebound and doing something positive with it than Ryan does.

Funny you should mention that, because i remember on 2 separate occasions that Dereck grabbed a board and simply was not strong enough to hang on to it. I remember another Lively Oboard (either vs Purdue or Xavier) in which he didn't even contemplate going for a shot even though he was in the lane, he just turned his back to the basket and passed it to the perimeter. In fact, I don't remember Dereck ever doing anything with an Oboard if it wasn't an easily dunkable ball. I don't pretend to know what the issue is, but Dereck's utility on offense is right there withe most limited offensive players Duke has ever had. He can still do lots of good things for this team, and is already doing some of those things some of the time, but he's got a long way to go.

[tommy]

Williams was a notably better offensive player in high school than Lively, though. As a soon to be senior, Wiliams averaged 14 ppg in the EYBL summer league. As a senior, he averaged 23 ppg. Lively averaged just 8 ppg in the EYBL before his senior year, and just 14 ppg in his senior year.

Williams showed a burgeoning midrange game as a freshman too, along with a decent touch around the rim and using the glass in the post. Lively has essentially airballed anything that wasn't a dunk (his 2 3pt attempts hit the backboard instead of the rim). It doesn't feel like Lively is going to be as good offensively as Williams was. Hopefully he gets there. But nothing about his high school career or his brief Duke career appears to suggest he will do so.

Lively's value is most likely to come on the other end, where he should hopefully not be a stiff on switches and hopefully will be a big-time shotblocker. He blocked a lot of shots in the EYBL and in high school, and his current block percentage mirrors that of freshman Mark Williams. So I feel like that is where he is going to contribute, along with the occasional lob dunks and putbacks. But I don't anticipate an impactful offensive game from him.

Agree w you that there is no comparison between Mark's offensive game and Dereck's. Mark, even as a freshman, showed some actual offensive moves on the block that were effective, and he showed some touch. Lively is simply not going to be anything more this year than a lob and dump-off recipient at or close to the rim. Problem is that you need to have space for those screen/rolls to work. If there is traffic, Lively isn't going to be able to navigate it -- he's just not strong enough or skilled enough from what I've seen so far. He also needs to have skilled distributors getting him the ball on those rolls at the right time and at the right place. We do not have a plethora of guys who have exhibited that skill very much at all.

Defensively, Lively has obvious shotblocking ability, in particular coming over to provide weakside help. He's certainly athletic in that way, exhibiting good timing and shotblocking instincts. What he needs to do is learn to defend without fouling. I haven't calculated it, but I bet his fouls per 40 minutes is not a good number right now.

The fact that Dereck is having difficulty separating himself from Ryan Young on the basketball floor is certainly troubling. Ryan is very valuable and I like him on our team but he doesn't have nearly the physical tools that Dereck does. Dereck just doesn't have a developed offensive game, does not appear to understand spacing very well, and can be pushed around at either end of the floor due to his slender frame. Not you, CDu, but others on here who are sugarcoating these realities or writing it all off to missing some pre-season time with a calf strain or whatever it was, are doing themselves a disservice IMO.

[DukieInBrasil]

I am not sure exactly what this says about the ol' eye test, but I'm pretty sure it's not good.

I can definitely see a realistic scenario where Dereck is the better offensive player of the two this year. Ryan's ORTG against better competition is only 102.9. Granted Dereck's is 77.8, but we are only talking about 8 shots from a guy coming off of an injury. More practice and distance from the injury, and I think we will see a better Dereck.

Ryan will always be the more skilled, but I am not certain that he will be better offensive player. Mark wasn't blessed with an abundance of skill as a freshman, but he turned in a really good year offensively (defensively as well). If Dereck (and Duke) can tap into his athleticism, I think Dereck will be a better offensive player than Ryan.

I can't. The only way Dereck has shown that he's gonna get any offensive action is thru lobs and Oboards. So unless our guards start finding ways to get Lively more lob dunks and/or Lively starts doing what he hasn't done much of so far this year, Oboards, there doesn't appear to be much room for Dereck to maneuver into becoming a better offensive player than Ryan.

The same way Mark Williams did as a freshman. Mark took 74 out of his 101 shots at the rim.

Mark hit several elbow jumpers as a Fr., and got lots of baskets by using good footwork, spin moves, short hook shots and layups. You will notice that ~75% of shots at the rim is substantially less than 100%. Mark was, as a Fr., a vastly more evolved offensive player than is Lively.

[sagegrouse]

So use the entire sample of 8 games, but use the correct assessment: somewhere in the bottom-20s or top-30s, not top-15/20.



But they haven't played like a team in the 15 to 20 range even in that 8 game sample. That's my point. I agree with using a bigger sample, but the assessment of that 8-game sample wasn't correct.

I completely agree they should get better. My point is simply that they aren't playing like a top-15/20 team right now, and thus "getting better" doesn't inherently puts us roughly where we want to be (which was the logical implication of your "their playing like a top-15/20 team now, and they are going to get better" statement). I think getting better could range from improving to become a top-25 team, or it could mean we get to that top-15/20ish team, or it could mean getting to a top-10 team, or in the best case even better than that.

In addition, these are (a) ordinal rankings and (b) assessed in November. So this is mostly conjecture, not that there's anything wrong with that on the internet

[rsvman]

Hi all,

I've read many posts hoping our offense improves as Whitehead/Lively come on. I agree on Whitehead. I am not sure on Lively.

First, if you go watch some of his mixtapes from high school, you'll see almost all of the highlights are passes, lobs, blocks and open 3s. We've seen the passes, lobs and blocks. We can hope he hits some open 3s, though he was 0-2 last night. Not sure what percent he hit in high school. Overall, though, while we might expect the current game we are seeing from him to get sharper and more confident, I don't think we should expect to see him start making post moves as that is not his game. Mixtape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM7tDvI0WEs.

Second, see this negative scouting report on him from before his first game - pretty spot on as far as what we've been seeing:

"The lack of aggression is a bit of a concern. He really does not do much in the interior, and in terms of rim protection, it’s mostly second side or in recovery. He really doesn’t put a lid on the rim like people think. He’s not strong, and [though Oregon center Kel’el Ware] isn’t strong either, Kel’el is willing to play inside while Dereck isn’t trying to mix it up." Link: https://www.nbabigboard.com/p/one-an...ated-seven-nba

I know his #1 ranking should be lower given there are talented players not in college, but even then it just seems too high. I'm not even sure he's at Freshman Mark Williams level right now.

I seriously wonder if this team would be better with Young starting over Lively. On the other hand, I'd start Whitehead now, perhaps over Proctor, as I think our season goes as he goes.

This is not to pile on Lively, which plays with heart and team spirit. I hope he proves me wrong and this post looks silly in a few months!

The most insulting part of this post is the use of 'which' in place of 'who' in the penultimate sentence.

[SkyBrickey]

Agree w you that there is no comparison between Mark's offensive game and Dereck's. Mark, even as a freshman, showed some actual offensive moves on the block that were effective, and he showed some touch. Lively is simply not going to be anything more this year than a lob and dump-off recipient at or close to the rim. Problem is that you need to have space for those screen/rolls to work. If there is traffic, Lively isn't going to be able to navigate it -- he's just not strong enough or skilled enough from what I've seen so far. He also needs to have skilled distributors getting him the ball on those rolls at the right time and at the right place. We do not have a plethora of guys who have exhibited that skill very much at all.

Defensively, Lively has obvious shotblocking ability, in particular coming over to provide weakside help. He's certainly athletic in that way, exhibiting good timing and shotblocking instincts. What he needs to do is learn to defend without fouling. I haven't calculated it, but I bet his fouls per 40 minutes is not a good number right now.

The fact that Dereck is having difficulty separating himself from Ryan Young on the basketball floor is certainly troubling. Ryan is very valuable and I like him on our team but he doesn't have nearly the physical tools that Dereck does. Dereck just doesn't have a developed offensive game, does not appear to understand spacing very well, and can be pushed around at either end of the floor due to his slender frame. Not you, CDu, but others on here who are sugarcoating these realities or writing it all off to missing some pre-season time with a calf strain or whatever it was, are doing themselves a disservice IMO.

I don’t disagree with your view on where Lively is today. But I believe he will be a lot better player in a month. He’s still majorly adjusting to the college game and was slowed down by that injury. To get there he needs court time - can’t get there watching Young from the bench. I trust the Coaches to figure out the right balance of minutes to have us winning games and playing our best ball in March.

[phaedrus]

When he gets back to full strength and gets a full head of steam going downhill, he is the kind of player you get out of the way on unless you want to be on a poster hanging over some millennials bed.

I regret to say that millennials, now approaching their 40s, are more likely to have posters of JJ Redick or Jason Williams in their home gyms than they are to have a poster of Dariq Whitehead over their beds, lest they draw a decor-based objection from their significant other.

[azzefkram]

Williams was a notably better offensive player in high school than Lively, though. As a soon to be senior, Wiliams averaged 14 ppg in the EYBL summer league. As a senior, he averaged 23 ppg. Lively averaged just 8 ppg in the EYBL before his senior year, and just 14 ppg in his senior year.

Fair enough

Williams showed a burgeoning midrange game as a freshman too, along with a decent touch around the rim and using the glass in the post. Lively has essentially airballed anything that wasn't a dunk (his 2 3pt attempts hit the backboard instead of the rim). It doesn't feel like Lively is going to be as good offensively as Williams was. Hopefully he gets there. But nothing about his high school career or his brief Duke career appears to suggest he will do so.

cDude, it's 3 attempts. Mark only took 27 shots away from the rim and a majority of the shots at the rim were dunks (34-34 Sweet).

Lively's value is most likely to come on the other end, where he should hopefully not be a stiff on switches and hopefully will be a big-time shotblocker. He blocked a lot of shots in the EYBL and in high school, and his current block percentage mirrors that of freshman Mark Williams. So I feel like that is where he is going to contribute, along with the occasional lob dunks and putbacks. But I don't anticipate an impactful offensive game from him.

I agree that Dereck will provide more value on the defensive end. Will he be as good as freshman Mark? Probably not, but neither is Ryan. Can Dereck be a positive on the offensive end? I really think so if he focuses most of his attempts at the rim (like Mark did) and guys look for him. As a fourth or five banana on the offensive end, Dereck is not a bad choice.

Funny you should mention that, because i remember on 2 separate occasions that Dereck grabbed a board and simply was not strong enough to hang on to it. I remember another Lively Oboard (either vs Purdue or Xavier) in which he didn't even contemplate going for a shot even though he was in the lane, he just turned his back to the basket and passed it to the perimeter. In fact, I don't remember Dereck ever doing anything with an Oboard if it wasn't an easily dunkable ball. I don't pretend to know what the issue is, but Dereck's utility on offense is right there withe most limited offensive players Duke has ever had. He can still do lots of good things for this team, and is already doing some of those things some of the time, but he's got a long way to go.

I can't. The only way Dereck has shown that he's gonna get any offensive action is thru lobs and Oboards. So unless our guards start finding ways to get Lively more lob dunks and/or Lively starts doing what he hasn't done much of so far this year, Oboards, there doesn't appear to be much room for Dereck to maneuver into becoming a better offensive player than Ryan.

Against Kansas, Xavier, and Purdue, Ryan has 10 oboards (18.8%) to Dereck's 8 (14.3%). Ryan is better but not by leaps and bounds. Ryan has 0 put-back attempts on those 10 oboards, while Dereck has 5 (made 3) attempts. Dereck has already shown you that he can do more with an offensive rebound than Ryan can. Given Duke's problematic outside shooting, I rather have a player who gets fewer oboards and does something with them than a player who grabs a few more but doesn't do much with them. As for TOs, Ryan is nearly doubling Dereck (32.5 vs. 17.6).

Mark hit several elbow jumpers as a Fr., and got lots of baskets by using good footwork, spin moves, short hook shots and layups. You will notice that ~75% of shots at the rim is substantially less than 100%. Mark was, as a Fr., a vastly more evolved offensive player than is Lively.

Mark made 60 shots at the rim as a freshman, 34 of them were dunks. Mark made 11 2pt shots not at the rim in 23 games. Mark was definitely more skilled than Dereck but not vastly so.

Dereck will never be the focal point of the offense nor should he, but he can be a net positive on that end.

[Jeffrey]

So far, Lively has done an excellent job illustrating why NBA teams greatly benefit from OAD.