Responding to different parts of all these posts.
My sense of it is that the coaches' if-everything-went-according-to-plan Master Plan included Duke starting Kuminga, Johnson, and Kessler at the 3/4/5, respectively. You just have to look at Kuminga and Jalen's extremely weak shooting numbers in EYBL (when I'm not lazy, I'll link them) and it becomes clear that Kessler would've been the perfect fit to those two rim attackers. Kuminga rebounds like a SF (I think something like 5 rebs/gm), so it would not be ideal to play him at PF or C. Moreover, we can expect that Johnson and Kuminga would wear down over the course of the season if they had to start at C and PF respectively. We need a center. Hopefully one that can shoot.
Welp, things obviously didn't go according to plan, and now we'll have to scramble a bit. Our coaches are good at scrambling, and I'm excited to see what they can come up with.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
I expected Duke to get all three of Kessler, M. Williams and Coleman and I expected Kessler to start next season.
For the record.
Duke definitely needs two centers from this class. K has more positional fluidity than most coaches but I'll believe the he-doesn't-believe-in-positions-mantra the next time I see him start five 6-4 players.
It makes me wonder what's going on at these high school that kids can so easily reclassify.
Parents understandably don't want to foot the bill for college education. If their kid has athletic potential, they will try to maximize his/her odds of getting an athletic scholarship. If you hold him/her back a year, he/she will be more physically developed than peers, will be more likely to dominate, and be more likely to attract college attention.
Some kids are so supremely talented that, at some point, it becomes obvious that they didn't need to be held back a year. And so these kids re-classify back to their original class instead of wasting another year in high school.
We'll never compete in recruiting, if the Tar Heels keep invoking the name "Luke Maye" to lure elite recruits.
a lot depends on the school. The private HS i went to is a football factory .. several D1 kids every year... but has never in 60+ years allowed early graduation so a recruit could do spring practice on campus. They won't budge and I assume a lot of other private high schools are the same. Schools in the south seem to be more free with early graduation and the diploma mills are like choose your own adventure.
I'm looking at Jonathan Kuminga's stats and I am not convinced he'll be able to play the 5 for any stretch. He doesn't seem to have big rebound numbers.
He could have been the next Laettner. Instead, he’ll be the next Tony Bradley.
I'm really upset about the Kessler news. The way this roster is shaping up for 2020-21, the one thing we absolutely need is a stretch big, especially someone who can play center. Now that guy is on another team that we have to play against at least twice . . .
I know we're pretty spoiled with recruiting, but this one in particular feels really bad, maybe even worse than Harrison Barnes. I hope we can get a good transfer or something.
I believe that this is exactly what happened with Alex Murphy, when he decided to re-classify in his junior year so he could come to Duke a year early (apparently at the behest of the Duke basketball coaches) and the private high school that he was then attending in Massachusetts (and also my alma mater) would not allow him to "graduate" a year early; so he left the private school in the spring semester of his junior year and then re-enrolled in the public high school in his home town in Rhode Island who then allowed him to graduate a year early (I believe he had stayed back a year when he first went to the private school). I find the whole high school/college athletic "industrial complex" to be an increasing slippery slope of questionable ethics, academics and monetary improprieties/criminal activities. But given the amount of money flowing through the entire system, no one has the power and the guts to put up a good fight.
No way is this worse than Harrison Barnes. I made a joke about it earlier, but this isn't even on the same planet. I know you remember the details, but for anyone who does not, when Barnes committed to the CHeats in the fall of 2009:
- UNC had just won the title, their second in five years, and had another loaded team for the upcoming season. They were on top of the world.
- We had just gotten blown out in embarrasing fashion by Villanova, had not made a final four since 2004 and hadn't even really been close.
- Head to head we were getting dominated by the CHeats, it literally felt to me like we might never beat them again (which was an overreaction, but a reasonable emotion at the time)
- Gerald Henderson had recently announced he was leaving early (not a huge surprise, but still a major bummer)
- Elliot Williams unexpectedly transferred, citing family health concerns. He was expected to play a major role in the upcoming season
- Olek Cyzk announced he would also transfer, leaving us with two scholarship guards on the roster
- Our only glimmer of hope was that we had Kyrie Irving committed for the following season (we didn't even know at the time exactly HOW good he would be) and we were the heavy favorites for Barnes. Having those two would at least give us a puncher's chance at beating the CHeats.
- Unsubstantiated rumors were flying around that Barnes had already verbally committed to us. This was before Twitter and such, but excitement was building for the 2010-2011 season. It was already assumed that 2009-2010 would be a throwaway season, I recall one prominent article in the local paper that suggested we should "tank" the season and play the younger guys in preparation for the following season when we might actually have a chance at doing something.
- Barnes's commitment was one of the most hyped announcements ever up until that time. He got to the podium and announced that he would attend the school whose coach he was about to Skype (which most people didn't even know of). Then we see Ol' Roy's ugly mug and his whole team in that ugly blue, smiling and grinning and knowing he'd just swindled us.
My blood pressure rises just thinking about that moment. But the rest, as they say, is history...
Compared to missing out on Kessler, we already have three five-stars committed, we have plenty of time to regroup and target another center (the recruiting cycle is much shorter now than it was in 2009), and our program as a whole is in terrific shape. We'll be fine.
And the prevailing narrative was that K had lost his ability to recruit.
A bit of a quibble. Czyz was never a guard and he didn't transfer until semester break of the 2009-'10 season by which point Andre Dawkins had given Duke its third scholarship guard.
And Kyrie Irving was coming.