soflabluedevil
Member
I am confident he will be heavier and stronger. What no one can replicate is his quick release.
Duke Men’s 2025-26 discussion
- Thread starter goFurman
- Start date
It came up in the context of a comparison of the 2026 and 2019 teams. If Isaiah is going to be "the man" on the 2026 team (or the co-man, alongside an incredibly efficient power forward who's the actual best player on the team) then by necessity he has to be compared to RJ (who held that role on the 2019 team). It's not supposed to be a comp based on style of play.
Will Isaiah Evans be "HIM"? Who knows. But unless I misinterpreted, you, yourself, alluded as much in your latest podcast.
I expect big things from Isaiah this season. I think his limited offense was more role-related than a result of a lack of skill. That being said, there are some areas he will need to improve to be an impact player this season. Strength is probably the most important. Isaiah appears to possess good athleticism, but struggles to showcase it due to a lack of strength. On defense, he was quite prone to bully ball, and switches onto bigs often went very poorly. On offense, he struggled to score in the paint, either being ridden off his line during drives or finishing through contact. He doesn't have to become Sion, but a bit more strength would help.
Additionally, he is a bad shot-taker and, worse still, a bad shot-maker. His role this past season limited this, but you could see it crop up on occasion, and it is evident throughout his high school tape. Do we see more of it if Isaiah's role expands? I'm not sure, but if we do, I think it may limit his potential.
Additionally, he is a bad shot-taker and, worse still, a bad shot-maker. His role this past season limited this, but you could see it crop up on occasion, and it is evident throughout his high school tape. Do we see more of it if Isaiah's role expands? I'm not sure, but if we do, I think it may limit his potential.
JasonEvans
Host, The Duke Basketball Roundup
Ok, I get that but why does being "HIM" mean we are comparing Isaiah to someone who's game is sooo different. It is sorta like saying "Michael Jordan was once the best player in the league. Now Nikola Jokic is the best. Let's compare their games to see how Jokic and Jordan are similar."
Sure, you can do it but it doesn't feel to me like it is going to tell you all that much about how Isaiah plays or how he will impact the success of next year's team.
There are just so many other comparisons that seems to be a lot more productive. I feel like we started out with a not entirely unreasonable (but also not entirely accurate) comp of Zion and Cam and we just zagged from there over to other 2019 players as if 2019 is some gold standard to which we should hold up all Duke teams.
If you ask me, the better comp is probably 2022 with:
Cam/Paolo
Isaiah/AJ (or maybe Keels, Isaiah figures to have a bigger offensive load than AJ did)
Sarr/Wendell
Pat/Mark
Caleb/Roach
Of course, like all comparisons it soon starts to fall apart as the 2026 bench looks considerably stronger than Keels, Baker, and Theo.
That's a pretty close game in my opinion, between next year and 2022. If Cam is as good as Paolo, and Sarr as good as Wendell, then I'll accept Pat and Caleb being not quite as good as their counterparts because I feel Isaiah will be better than AJ (whose defense was Doncic-like) and the much, much better bench.
That's not what was going on at all. The point of the original post was to compare next year's team to the 2019 team. Hard to do that without comparing 2026 players to 2019 players. And to make that comparison, if Evans is going to be the alpha perimeter player, there's only one guy on the 2019 team with whom he could be compared.
Just because I chose to compare to the 2019 team (with which I believe next year's team will have a lot of parallels), doesn't make it a "gold standard." It's just the team I chose to compare with. But, now that you bring it up, the 2019 team was one of the best Duke teams in recent memory and any team that can compare with that team without getting laughed out of the room is a really good team. Which was the main point of my original post.
Honestly I think this is a worse comparison than 2019. Sarr and Moore will probably play completely different roles, Ngongba and Williams are almost as opposite as two centers could be. And Griffin wasn't anything close to "HIM." Plus, as you mention, the benches aren't remotely similar.
Also, if you want to get technical about it, Cam and Paolo aren't all that similar, either. Almost 35% of Banchero's shots at Duke were two-point jumpers, and he was only a so-so three-point shooter. From what I understand, Cameron Boozer takes pretty close to zero two-point jumpers and he's a very good three-point shooter. That's why he's so efficient. If shot selection and three-point shooting are your benchmarks, what makes these two significantly more similar than Evans and Barrett?
All that said, if our floor is 2022 and our ceiling is 2019, we'll probably all be very happy fans next season.
Just curious, how so? They seem a bit similar to me.
Phredd3
Member
I would argue that the 2019 team just didn't have an "alpha perimeter player". Cam Reddish was supposed to be that guy, but just wasn't reliable enough. Reddish ended up shooting just 33% on the season. Still, that was considerably better than RJ, who could only muster 30.8% for the year. Both of those guys shot more than 230 threes, and Tre Jones was the only other player with more than 100 attempts, at just 103 (and he shot an abysmal 27.5%). The 2019 team as a whole shot just 30.8% from three.
Compare that to last year, where the entire team averaged better from three (38.3%) than any one player from the 2019 team actually managed to do (Alex O'Connell was the leader, at 37.5% on just 80 attempts). 2019 was just such a terrible shooting team. *sigh*
In any case, I'd think Reddish was more the comp for Isaiah, with more attempts from three than from two, and used primarily as a spacer, not a shot creator. I'd think it would be Sarr or Khamenia that is more similar to RJ. Not that either is likely to perform like RJ, but the role will likely be a bit more similar as inside-outside creators, rather than just pure shooters. Of course, who knows? Maybe Isaiah will find an RJ-like ability to create. But we haven't seen it at the college level yet.
Ngongba is an offensive minded center with good post footwork and strong passing skills. His defense is decent but not his strength, and he's mostly a positional defender rather than an intimidating rim protector.
Williams was a little raw on offense, mostly a lob threat. His defense was outstanding, mostly as an intimidating rim protector.
I mean, it's not the difference between Nikola Jokic and Derreck Lively, but they seem to be pretty opposite to me.
SkyBrickey
Member
I don't buy into the theory that Jon only wanted Isaiah to shoot 3s - that he got locked into this shot mix by his coach. I think Jon would have loved if Isaiah could effectively attack closeouts like Cooper, Kon and Sion and get into the lane to make plays.
My eye test watching Isaiah try to drive the ball last year saw two problems: a relatively slow first step and a lack of strength leading to him getting bumped off his driving lines. Added strength will help. But I don't expect we will suddenly see Isaiah transform into a playmaker or strong rim finisher.
I think a factor here too for Isaiah is that Jon - much more than Coach K before him - sees those pull-up 2s as bad shots. Kon mentioned this in his NBA interviews. Jon doesn't want them in the offense. He wants his perimeter guys to shoot 3s and create shots at the rim. You need plus quickness (Foster) and/or strength (Kon, Sion) as a guard-wing to get good shots at the rim in this Duke offense.
My eye test watching Isaiah try to drive the ball last year saw two problems: a relatively slow first step and a lack of strength leading to him getting bumped off his driving lines. Added strength will help. But I don't expect we will suddenly see Isaiah transform into a playmaker or strong rim finisher.
I think a factor here too for Isaiah is that Jon - much more than Coach K before him - sees those pull-up 2s as bad shots. Kon mentioned this in his NBA interviews. Jon doesn't want them in the offense. He wants his perimeter guys to shoot 3s and create shots at the rim. You need plus quickness (Foster) and/or strength (Kon, Sion) as a guard-wing to get good shots at the rim in this Duke offense.
Sometimes too quick. Slim got into the habit of deciding he was shooting the ball before it even got to him, and many of those were bad shots, and predictably, they didn't go in. He's going to have to let things slow down and improve his shot selection this year.
Duke ran very different plays for Isaiah than they did for Cooper, Kon, or Sion. That, to me, speaks to the expected role. Was Jon maximizing what a role player did best, or was he avoiding what the role player couldn't do, or was it a bit from column A and a bit from column B? I'm not ready to assume anything at this point.
I disagree with Isaiah's first step. I thought it was fine. I couldn't agree more about the strength and, to a lesser degree, playmaker part. Getting to the rim may have been an issue for Isaiah, but once he got there, good things tended to happen. Isaiah finished at the rim better than Caleb, Tyrese, Cooper, Kon, and Sion. I'm not sure why you would assume that he won't be a strong rim finisher with added strength.
I may be misunderstanding your third paragraph. Isaiah took only 4.9% of his shots from midrange. That doesn't strike me as a high percentage. Why would that be a factor for Isaiah?
SkyBrickey
Member
Well, we've never had a player in Duke history who took so few 2s relative to 3s. Taylor King and Andre Dawkins are the closest. Isaiah only made 0.5 2s per game and a fair number of those were on layups/dunks in open court where the conversion rate is 90%+.
You may be right on Isaiah's first step off the dribble. It looked slower to me than our other perimeter players but I'm not going on much. We agree that the bigger issue is that it was easy for a defender to bump Isaiah off his line.
My point on the 2-pt shots is I think Isaiah is a guy who can take 1-2 dribbles and pull up for a good 12-15 footer vs trying to get all the way to the rim with his skinny frame. K let guys like Ingram, Tatum, Banchero shoot those shots. But in Jon's moneyball offense, Jon doesn't want Isaiah or anyone shooting those shots. So it limits Isaiah's impact.
I hope he puts it all together over the summer and shows up as a well rounded offensive threat. It wouldn't shock me. But I also wouldn't be surprised if he's limited to being almost exclusively a 3-pt shooter like he was as a freshman. I think that's what history suggests.
Do you consider pulling up from 6 feet in for a floater or a short jumper off the glass from either side to be an "at the rim" or a "mid-range" shot? I consider those more the former but, either way, a relatively high percentage shot that is underutilized in CBB today. And something that could be a very effective weapon for Isaiah, with or without some added bulk.
SkyBrickey
Member
I'd love to know how Jon views all these shots and how he instructs his guys. At times a midrange 2 near the end of the shot clock is the best shot available. Cooper and Tyrese shot the most of these on the team.
The floater is a forgotten shot in the college game. I seem to remember the floater was a big part of Nolan's offensive surge as a junior. These guys are all so dominant in high school that they never need a floater - it makes sense it's a shot that some guys develop later. I would bet that Kon develops it in the NBA.
Isaiah is long for a college wing. I think that's his biggest asset for finishing at the rim if he can learn to get there.
He has also a very quick release, which is why I think floaters and short bank shots could be very effective for him. But as a complement to rather than a substitute for getting to the rim.
Absolutely true, and his limited role has to be considered in the context of playing on one of the most offensively efficient teams in history.
We ruthlessly executed to find great shots, like no other past Duke team. Evans three pointers were part of that portfolio; other Evans shots - which might have been valuable on a merely good offensive team - were not, by design. So I think it’s folly to compare his numbers with those put up by really good players (Trent, Redick, etc.) on teams that were very good but had fewer scoring options.
SkyBrickey
Member
Any 2-pt shot that any of our guys can consistently make at 60%+ is a good shot. That's equivalent to 40% from 3.
I was wanting to see more floaters and short pull-up jumpers from Kon last year because I thought with his touch, he could make them at that 60% threshold.
I don't know if that was Jon holding him back or Kon just not having the confidence. But I'm skeptical we'll see a lot of those shots from Isaiah or Caleb or anyone on this team other than Cam.
brevity
Member
In an insane coincidence, Jordan Mann has a podcast interview with Coach Scheyer today, and they talk about this very subject. Start at about the 5:20 mark.
Jordan Mann: "I do want to ask, since you are an analytics guy, your opinion on the mid-range jump shot."
Jon Scheyer: "I'm glad you brought this up... I played for a guy, Chris Finch, who's the head coach for the Timberwolves now. I played for the G League team for the Houston Rockets, the Rio Grand Valley Vipers, and at that time the the Rockets organization was really on the forefront of analytics, experimenting, sending four guys to the offensive glass, shooting as many threes as possible. Analytics is a tool -- if you use it right, it can create a big advantage. That doesn't mean to play like a robot. That doesn't mean I want our guys crunching numbers during games for us.
We embraced the fact of fighting for our shots last year. We had the best offense in college basketball because we played with great spacing, we played really unselfish basketball, there's an overall team mindset of fighting for the best shots. The best shot in basketball you can get is a dunk, the next best shot you can get is a layup, and then obviously open corner threes, open threes. Anytime you can get to the free throw line, it's a big thing.
It's all about timing and situation, so I don't stop our practice if guys shoot pull-ups. That's not how I coach. There's a time and a place for it -- a lot of good defenses are set up to take away layups, open threes, and trying to keep you off the foul line. Let's use an example, end of game. It's not about shot selection through the course of a 40-minute game. If you take pull-up twos, and I take layups and threes, I'm going to beat you 99 times out of 100. The math doesn't work for you, at the end of the day.
But if we need one possession -- you need to score one time and I need to score one time -- the pull-up may be the best shot. Do I want a layup? Of course I want a layup, but at the end of the day, it's about scoring. And so, for our guys, I want them to play with their freedom, I want them to play with their instincts where they have times they shoot those shots... so our guys shoot pull-ups, but we take great shots too, and we fight to get to the rim."
Let me repeat one line. That doesn't mean I want our guys crunching numbers during games for us.
Duke player: "Okay, but I totally could crunch the numbers when I play."
UNC player: "Uh, I was told there would be no math."
SkyBrickey
Member
Interesting he spells out open corner three. I just looked it up and the corner 3 in CBB is 6 inches closer than the top of the key 3.
In the NBA the corner 3 is 21 inches closer than the top of the key 3.
You always hear the corner 3 is the best 3, but in CBB the advantage over other 3s is very small.
In the NBA the corner 3 is 21 inches closer than the top of the key 3.
You always hear the corner 3 is the best 3, but in CBB the advantage over other 3s is very small.