2024-2025 Men’s Basketball Season: General Offseason Discussion

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Cooper will obviously be a lock for the 2027 world cup team and the 2028 olympics, as well as Paolo Banchero. Tatum may or may not still be on the team by that point. But I also think there's a strong chance another Dukie will be on the roster: Dereck Lively. Maybe Zion, but I kind of doubt it.
So... Flagg, Tatum, Banchero, and Lively. 1/3 of the team. Add a couple more (Zion? Kyrie?) and that's half the team. GO DUKE!!!
 
RIGHT ON. Head height is worthless... I always felt Elton Brand killed because he was tall at the shoulders. That's why they measure "standing reach" not hair height. Who cares. I'll take a 6'8" guy with 9'2" reach over a 6'10" guy with 9'0" reach EVERYDAY. Its about REACH. Not height. Height helps to see the basket I guess but when rebounding and blocking its about vertical and standing reach. .. ELTON BRAND - one of the most dominant inside guys ever and not nearly the tallest. Way better than most 7'0 guys we have had at banging and doing blue collar work
As a follow up, I thought I also remembered a pic of Isaiah and Kon. Yep, right in the DukeMBB IG. Kon is very close in height to Isaiah. So, he’s surely 6’6”+ considering how much taller Isaiah looks to be versus the 6’5” Tyrese. And, yes, his shoulders are almost the same height as Isaiah’s…. As for a wingspan measurement, we will need some cinder blocks.
 
Cooper will obviously be a lock for the 2027 world cup team and the 2028 olympics, as well as Paolo Banchero. Tatum may or may not still be on the team by that point. But I also think there's a strong chance another Dukie will be on the roster: Dereck Lively. Doesn't seem like Grant is too interested in Zion, unfortunately.
Zion ended the season with an injury. I assume he's back from that by now (iirc he was game-to-game when it happened back in April), but I can't imagine the Pelicans (and maybe Zion, too) would be super jazzed about him taking a bunch of game reps during what is for Z very important rest/rehab/conditioning time. If you're Grant, you don't want to risk injury to a star right when you're getting the top guys back into the Team USA fold, and Zion's history makes him a gamble on that front. Makes sense why neither party would be too keen on seeing Zion on the national team.
 
From the Atlantic:
Cooper Flagg is leaving Las Vegas as the talk of the now-concluded Team USA training camp.

Flagg, 17, an incoming freshman at Duke and an early favorite as the No. 1 pick of the 2025 NBA Draft, is not on the team headed for Paris and a possible fifth Olympic gold medal. But he was the best player on the select team and one of the most consistent players on the court during three scrimmages over the last three days against the national team of stars.

“Cooper Flagg was unbelievable,” said Jim Boylen, assistant coach for both the select team and the Indiana Pacers. “He’s not scared.”

“He showed no fear,” added Jalen Duren, center for the Detroit Pistons and the select team. “He came and worked hard every day. You would think he’s already here, you know what I mean?”

“Coop was playing out of his mind,” added Jaime Jaquez Jr., a select team player who also plays for the Miami Heat. …

A final points tally for Flagg was not immediately available, but U.S. coaches and executives estimated Flagg scored between 14 and 17 points in a narrow 74-73 loss to Team USA on Monday. And in the portion of the scrimmage open to the media, Flagg drained a corner 3 and then executed an audacious putback over the American defense to put the select team ahead, 69-68, with less than 2 minutes left. Flagg missed the ensuing free throw. …

Wow
 
Cooper will obviously be a lock for the 2027 world cup team and the 2028 olympics, as well as Paolo Banchero. Tatum may or may not still be on the team by that point. But I also think there's a strong chance another Dukie will be on the roster: Dereck Lively. Doesn't seem like Grant is too interested in Zion, unfortunately.
I could be wrong but I don’t recall Zion ever playing for USABB even at the Junior levels. I’d argue there’s more evidence that it’s the other way around - Zion doesn’t have much interest in the national team, for one reason or another.
 
The thing I love about that final play is that we see Coop cut through the lane and not get the ball. Seconds later, Brandon Podziemski gets his weak shot blocked by AD to secure the win for Team USA and we see Cooper turn to the bench and shrug in disgust that he wasn't given the ball on the play.

He was on a team full of young NBA stars... playing against the absolute best players in the world... and he is mad that he didn't get the ball for the last shot.

Kid has unending confidence and moxie with the skills and ability to back it up. I feel entirely comfortable predicting that he and Wemby are going to be the faces of the league for a long time.
 
Not only is Cooper a Grant-Hill-type do everything player, he's taller than Grant. :)

I heard this recently on Bill Simmons’ podcast (and Ryen Russillo agreed): Jayson Tatum has grown at least an inch and is 6’10 now. I think that picture confirms it. He’s standing furthest forward and yet still appears a good 2-3 inches taller than 6’8” Grant Hill. He looks taller than Cooper as well, who is 6’9”.
 
Grant is old and has apparently shrunk a couple of inches.
Grant is not THAT old. I do wonder how much the beating these guys’ bodies take over the years accelerates aging. I’m a bit older than Grant and am exactly the same height I was at Duke. I did not spend 20 years in the NBA though….

Cooper is a legit 6’9” though.
 
Here's your football analogy. You've got the #1 football recruit in the country coming in. He played all over the field in high school - inside/outside linebacker, defensive end, some tight end on offense. He projects as either OLB or DE in college. He would be devastatingly good at both.

Do you line the 18 year old up half the snaps at OLB and half the snaps at DE? Or do you play him all his snaps at what you, the coach, think is his best college position, OLB?
In economics terms, we call it absolute advantage vs. competitive advantage. Go with the absolute advantage and win big. If you put him where it is merely competitive advantage, we don't maximize/optimize our offense to where we can be truly dominant.

The problem with Flagg, from all reports, is that he has an absolute advantage all over the court, except (perhaps) in shooting. When someone does EVERYTHING better than everyone else on the court, where best to put him/How best to use him?
 
In economics terms, we call it absolute advantage vs. competitive advantage. Go with the absolute advantage and win big. If you put him where it is merely competitive advantage, we don't maximize/optimize our offense to where we can be truly dominant.

The problem with Flagg, from all reports, is that he has an absolute advantage all over the court, except (perhaps) in shooting. When someone does EVERYTHING better than everyone else on the court, where best to put him/How best to use him?
Yep, this has been my point with Cooper. You build the offense around him and let the other players around him adapt. You don't ask Cooper to "switch positions" based on lineups. Cooper is the position.
 
Yep, this has been my point with Cooper. You build the offense around him and let the other players around him adapt. You don't ask Cooper to "switch positions" based on lineups. Cooper is the position.
Reminds me of what ML Carr (if I recall correctly) related that in a huddle in a game with the coach trying to draw up a play, Bird said “just give me the ball and get out of the way”.
 
In economics terms, we call it absolute advantage vs. competitive advantage. Go with the absolute advantage and win big. If you put him where it is merely competitive advantage, we don't maximize/optimize our offense to where we can be truly dominant.

The problem with Flagg, from all reports, is that he has an absolute advantage all over the court, except (perhaps) in shooting. When someone does EVERYTHING better than everyone else on the court, where best to put him/How best to use him?
Well, I wouldn't call it a problem :). If Flagg is the best choice 1 through 5 and Jon can't create a transporter malfunction (everything will be fine as long as no Coopers have goatees), find the biggest gap between Cooper and choice number 2 for each position. For me, that is at the 3. An added bonus is that the 3 is Cooper's preferred position and the position he will play at the next level. It also goes with your point of absolute advantage vs. competitive advantage. This roster is built to have a dominant defense. Don't take away from that to maybe improve the offense.
 
Seeing as Proctor outscored Foster last year by 36%, i like Tyrese's chances of once again scoring more than Foster (he also out-assisted him by 76%). I still don't understand this "offense creating play-maker" that you keep painting Foster as. What i saw from Foster as a Fr. was a good 3pt shooter, safe ball-handler, very little creativity off the bounce for setting up other shooters, and somewhat poor finishing in traffic. I hope Caleb has a good year, and grows substantially in all those areas.

I am with you, Brasil. I am not hopping on the Foster train just yet. In fact, I think he could very well be supplanted as a starter 2/3 into the season. I just don't see the fire or creativity. Perhaps he was on a trajectory to address these items before he got hurt, but I don't see him as an Alpha that could lead the team in scoring. sure, I can see him going off for 30 on a hot night, but not consistently.
 
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