Isaiah Evans

SkyBrickey said:
A lot of people were speculating in the preseason that guys would move around positions in different lineup combinations. Very fluid substitutions. That's not what Jon has done in our first two competitive games - Kentucky and Arizona. The guys have well-defined roles.

Maluach and Brown share the 40m at the 5. Against AZ the split was Maluach 16 and Brown 24.

Proctor, Foster, James share the 80m at the 1/2. Against AZ the split was Proctor 34, Foster 26 and James 20.

And Gillis backs up Cooper at the 4 and Kon at the 3. Against AZ Cooper was 38, Kon was 35 and Gillis played 7.

So for the "play Evans" crowd, I think it's helpful to get inside Jon's head and realize that means either 1) playing him as backup to Kon instead of Gillis or 2) adding him as a 4th man in the 1/2 rotation along with Proctor James Foster. These are two different roles on this team. One requires Isaiah to be a better option than a fresh Gillis and the other requires him to be a better option than a fresh James.
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your positional analysis seems right to me. Although Gillis wasn't good last night he's much sturdier than IE. All things being equal, if Evans were in the game, and got that spot and shot that Gillis had that got blocked, i don't think Evans would have gotten blocked. He's an inch taller and looks to be longer limbed, although that could just be the skinny. Does that change the calculus as to who should be playing and how much? Probably not, unless/until GIllis starts consistently playing really poorly. And to this point he hasn't. He wasn't great vs. Wofford, and was quite bad vs. AU, but he's played well in other games.
 
DukieInBrasil said:
your positional analysis seems right to me. Although Gillis wasn't good last night he's much sturdier than IE. All things being equal, if Evans were in the game, and got that spot and shot that Gillis had that got blocked, i don't think Evans would have gotten blocked. He's an inch taller and looks to be longer limbed, although that could just be the skinny. Does that change the calculus as to who should be playing and how much? Probably not, unless/until GIllis starts consistently playing really poorly. And to this point he hasn't. He wasn't great vs. Wofford, and was quite bad vs. AU, but he's played well in other games.
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And then there is the defensive side of the game, where I believe Gillis is much better at this point in their respective careers.
 
MChambers said:
And then there is the defensive side of the game, where I believe Gillis is much better at this point in their respective careers.
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Yes, Gillis is clearly a better defender than Evans. And Gillis has a whole body of work last season as B1G 6th MOY where he shot 47% from 3. That's a high bar for Evans to clear.

Not saying he can't, but it's a really high bar to getting minutes in a tough game like last night.
 
As much as I am intrigued by Isaiah, I do not see him cracking an 8-man rotation unless something crazy happens like Caleb falls out of the top 8. Tyrese and Sion are playing too well right now. Mason is in a bit of a rut but he has a long history of being a very good D1 basketball player and he is Cooper's only back-up (unless Jon wants to play Maliq and Khaman together which is something he hasn't done to date).

Should Jon decide to go to 8.5/9-man rotation, Isaiah would appear to be the next man up. While I would like to see Jon expand the rotation, he does seem to push back on it every time it is brought up in a post-game presser.
 
azzefkram said:
As much as I am intrigued by Isaiah, I do not see him cracking an 8-man rotation unless something crazy happens like Caleb falls out of the top 8. Tyrese and Sion are playing too well right now. Mason is in a bit of a rut but he has a long history of being a very good D1 basketball player and he is Cooper's only back-up (unless Jon wants to play Maliq and Khaman together which is something he hasn't done to date).

Should Jon decide to go to 8.5/9-man rotation, Isaiah would appear to be the next man up. While I would like to see Jon expand the rotation, he does seem to push back on it every time it is brought up in a post-game presser.
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Sion is a fan favorite and makes some spectacular plays, but it seems clear that Jon still trusts Caleb as much or more than Sion. He played Caleb 26 min and Sion 20 min last night.

I'm still betting Caleb is in a bit of a mini-slump and will have some big offensive games in the future.

Still rooting for that Khaman + Maliq lineup, are we?
 
SkyBrickey said:
Sion is a fan favorite and makes some spectacular plays, but it seems clear that Jon still trusts Caleb as much or more than Sion. He played Caleb 26 min and Sion 20 min last night.

I'm still betting Caleb is in a bit of a mini-slump and will have some big offensive games in the future.

Still rooting for that Khaman + Maliq lineup, are we?
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If Khaman is going to shoot the 3 like that, who wouldn't want to see a frontcourt of Man Man, Maliq and Cooper? ;)
 
-jk said:
Perhaps the staff recognizes that employing a less dominating D is more harmful than adding a slightly better 3pt shooter. It's why I'm not paid the big bucks to coach!

-jk
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You may be correct they think that although impossible to say if that's actually true since IE hasn't played a minute in either competitive game. Having a floor spacer like IE may hurt you on D but may be more than offset by benefits on the other side of the court. Without data it's just a guess.

My experience in management is that a good manager starts with their system and plugs in the talent that works best within that system. What the team can achieve is based on the ceiling of the system. The best managers start with talent and adjust their system to maximize what the team can achieve. Performance is based on the ceiling of the talent.

For a team that can attract the best talent, like Duke, you have to adjust the system and get a talent like IE on the floor.
 
bluedevilwildcats said:
You may be correct they think that although hard to say if that's actually true since IE hasn't played a minute in either competitive game. Having a floor spacer like IE may hurt you on D but may be more than offset by benefits on the other side of the court. Without data it's just a guess.

My experience in management is that a good manager starts with their system and plugs in the talent that works best within that system. What the team can achieve is based on the ceiling of the system. The best managers start with talent and adjust their system to maximize what the team can achieve. Performance is based on the ceiling of the talent.

For a team that can attract the best talent, like Duke, you have to adjust the system and get a talent like IE on the floor.
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No, if based on your 100s of hours of watching and coaching a guy, if you judge at this point in his career he's clearly behind the other 8 guys, then you don't "have to adjust the system to get IE on the floor".

Jon is coaching to win and he got it done last night. And Cooper, Kon, Tyrese played 38, 35, 34 minutes respectively and not a single person has said they looked gassed at the end of the game. Funny how winning changes people's perspective...
 
Defensive metrics are a bit iffy, the season is young, and Isaiah hasn’t seen the court against top tier competition yet. However, Torvik’s defensive box-plus-minus stats (scroll to the bottom) peg Isaiah as the worst defender on the team by far thus far, coming in at only 0.9 points per 100 possessions better than an average NCAA player. For comparison, the next lowest players (only counting the other top 8 in minutes) are Caleb, Tyrese, and Kon, who are clustered at 2.8. Cooper is up above 7 (super elite).

On the other hand, his offensive BPM would be the best on the team (in a limited sample against lesser competition).

No long-term conclusions can be made from this type of data over a minuscule sample, but it’s clear that he has a lot of offensive talent that can definitely shine against lower-tier competition while simultaneously it’s clear that his defense hasn’t been good in limited minutes against lesser competition, fitting the eye test that he has struggled a bit on that end. That could all change rapidly, since the sample size is so tiny. But I think it’s obvious why he didn’t play against UK and Zona. I think if he shows improvement on that end, you’ll see Jon start finding ways to get him in the game.
 
SkyBrickey said:
My guess is that Isaiah is super happy at Duke while fans on social media worry for him... portal PTSD. Modern times.
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I think projecting either way is a fool's errands. Isaiah could be super happy or not. But I agree that us speculating that he isn't happy isn't very productive or even accurate. Some guys who get lots of minutes aren't happy either... Isaiah seems like a good dude with a lot of potential that I certainly hope sticks around but in the current era of collegiate basketball, things certainly are "different." He could also possibly start to crack the rotation later in the season, that's not out of the realm of possibility. Would love to see him continue to improve and contribute.
 
Bluedog said:
I think projecting either way is a fool's errands. Isaiah could be super happy or not. But I agree that us speculating that he isn't happy isn't very productive or even accurate. Some guys who get lots of minutes aren't happy either... Isaiah seems like a good dude with a lot of potential that I certainly hope sticks around but in the current era of collegiate basketball, things certainly are "different." He could also possibly start to crack the rotation later in the season, that's not out of the realm of possibility. Would love to see him continue to improve and contribute.
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Fully agreed. And I trust the coaches to keep Isaiah engaged and improving - and hopefully coming back to Duke for a monster sophomore season. He's a very different player than Stewart or Power.
 
-jk said:
Perhaps the staff recognizes that employing a less dominating D is more harmful than adding a slightly better 3pt shooter. It's why I'm not paid the big bucks to coach!

-jk
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I'm not paid at all, but I will say that what little I've seen of Evans, he's no worse defender than Caleb and I think he may be a better offensive player than Caleb. However, I think before we get deep into ACC play, Sion will be ahead of Caleb.

GoDuke!
 
Bluedog said:
I think projecting either way is a fool's errands. Isaiah could be super happy or not. But I agree that us speculating that he isn't happy isn't very productive or even accurate. Some guys who get lots of minutes aren't happy either... Isaiah seems like a good dude with a lot of potential that I certainly hope sticks around but in the current era of collegiate basketball, things certainly are "different." He could also possibly start to crack the rotation later in the season, that's not out of the realm of possibility. Would love to see him continue to improve and contribute.
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One thing we can't know unless/until Isaiah speaks to it is what he knows to be true about his "spot in the rotation" based on how he practices against his teammates. He knows very intimately how he stacks up against these guys because he plays against them every practice. If he's a self-aware young man he may very well understand why he's playing the minutes and spots in games that he is. Perhaps what he experiences in practice aligns withe playing time that he's seeing in games...
 
SkyBrickey said:
A lot of people were speculating in the preseason that guys would move around positions in different lineup combinations. Very fluid substitutions. That's not what Jon has done in our first two competitive games - Kentucky and Arizona. The guys have well-defined roles.

Maluach and Brown share the 40m at the 5. Against AZ the split was Maluach 16 and Brown 24.

Proctor, Foster, James share the 80m at the 1/2. Against AZ the split was Proctor 34, Foster 26 and James 20.

And Gillis backs up Cooper at the 4 and Kon at the 3. Against AZ Cooper was 38, Kon was 35 and Gillis played 7.

So for the "play Evans" crowd, I think it's helpful to get inside Jon's head and realize that means either 1) playing him as backup to Kon instead of Gillis or 2) adding him as a 4th man in the 1/2 rotation along with Proctor James Foster. These are two different roles on this team. One requires Isaiah to be a better option than a fresh Gillis and the other requires him to be a better option than a fresh James.
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I think the positional/minutes break down is spot on. Looking at the Arizona game, Coach S allocated minimal minutes to Gillis because Kon was able to handle the physical play — his rebounding showed he was definitely not “knocked back”.
I don’t think Evans is physically able to handle that yet. That means that his path to playing time is at the guard spot. I think the issue there is that Sion is already pushing for more minutes at Foster’s expense. I doubt there is room for two people to elbow their way into the same spot at the same time.
 
dlmzzz said:
I think the positional/minutes break down is spot on. Looking at the Arizona game, Coach S allocated minimal minutes to Gillis because Kon was able to handle the physical play — his rebounding showed he was definitely not “knocked back”.
I don’t think Evans is physically able to handle that yet. That means that his path to playing time is at the guard spot. I think the issue there is that Sion is already pushing for more minutes at Foster’s expense. I doubt there is room for two people to elbow their way into the same spot at the same time.
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I’ve been mostly very happy with Mason Gillis’ play this season, but the one thing I do have a bit of a gripe with is how often he tries to put the ball on the floor to drive. It’s been a pretty low percentage play for him, and I do wish he would embrace more of a pure 3&D role and just move the ball rather than try to make the play himself.

But I haven’t watched him much until this year, so maybe I’m wrong and he is more capable of attacking the paint than I’m giving him credit for. However, in the Arizona game, he did drive into traffic and turned it over, which lead to an AZ fast break bucket, and then went to the bench for the rest of the game.

But on the actual topic of this thread, I agree Evans’ minutes are mutually exclusive with Gillis.
 
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kAzE said:
But on the actual topic of this thread, I agree Evans’ minutes are mutually exclusive with Gillis.
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It seems to me that Gillis and Evans play very different positions. The place I could see Evans getting some minutes, if his defense improves enough, would be for Proctor. I would not have thought so before the year started but Tyrese is playing off the ball extensively as a shooter. Contemplating Evans’ potential defense, it would seem more likely that he could be able to guard the types of players that Proctor guards rather than the players that Gillis or even Kon guards. Not saying it is likely it will happen, but a scenario where Evan’s comes in as an outside threat and guards a guard while Proctor gets a breather would seem the path he could take this year. I just don’t imagine he will somehow be able to bang with the opponents heavier wings and even power forwards lile Kon and Gillis. Maybe he can play the wing against some teams, but generally think the player he most could resemble and so replacement he might could provide would be Proctor
 
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