DurhamSon
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I think Axe was the only poster on the board who wanted Knox
College Basketball 2017-18
- Thread starter torontoduke
- Start date
I think Axe was the only poster on the board who wanted Knox
sjsj2448
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Kudos. I am rooting like Hell against that Meeks-looking fucker, so I am glad you were right.
Yeah, I don't remember anyone else.
rome8180
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There was some underestimating, sure. But it was more thinking he was a redundant piece who could tamper with chemistry. Fortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case. But it was a valid position to think that adding a fifth big man, no matter how good he was, wouldn't necessarily make us better.
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I think every single person who has ever posted about Bagley here underestimated Bagley if we're passing ultimate judgment after these first two games, since there are a bunch of projection posts about him, and none of them have him averaging 25 and 10. I would like to see what he does against MSU.
There's a very good chance Bagley is the greatest person in history at putting a basketball through a rim when he's standing within 5-8 feet of the rim. That's a great skill to have and you take those genetics to build with any day, over just about anyone else's who has ever lived. I think everyone has always understood that part.
Now Bagley has to figure out how to do other good things. You can't be a superstar if all you can do at a not-terrible level is score inside and rebound. He has zero blocked shots, isn't drawing nearly enough fouls for his size and role, has 2 assists and 4 turnovers and, of course, is 2-9 from the line. You can certainly be a championship-caliber role player with that skill set (someone like Bagley could put the Celtics over the top and could take the Warriors from unbeatable to super unbeatable), but it doesn't sound like a superstar to me, as he is right now.
Bagley's overall performance even in these first two dominant games has been bad once you look beyond eye test highlights. He has the 8th best BPM in Duke's rotation. It's a negative 4.8. He's a negative on both offense and defense in BPM. His defensive rating is last among Duke's normal rotation big men, behind all of Carter, Bolden and DeLaurier. His offensive rating, which I wouldn't criticize him for given his high 28% usage, is 7th in the rotation.
Ironically, it looked like someone on this board was recently calling out Rome for his terrible takes, mainly citing Rome's assertion that Carter would be better than Bagley as a freshman despite Bagley being more highlight reel-friendly. Yet this is exactly the case through two games. Carter has been the better player by the advanced numbers, which is what most of us care about here, since they're much better predictors of future success than basic stats like points per game and rebounds per game.
Carter has the best BPM on the team, mainly due to his dominant defensive impact so far. Despite the "artificial" padding of defensive stats through defensive rebounding, Carter has better overall defensive stats (defensive rating and DBPM) than Bagley. Bagley is crushing on the defensive glass, at 24% defensive rebounding compared with Carter's 13%. If Carter played as much in them middle of the 2-3 zone as Bagley, the overall defensive stats would be even more strongly in Carter's favor. Carter's 15.5% block rate is likely unsustainable, but it draws attention to Bagley's 0% block rate thus far. The discrepancy follows what Carter and Bagley did in high school, where Carter put up massive shot block stats and Bagley was pedestrian in that respect.
Idiot Rome may have been correct after all. Only a fool would proclaim him wrong about a player comparison after two games against bad teams, but it takes next level stupidity to proclaim him wrong when the objective stats actually show he is right so far.
There's a very good chance Bagley is the greatest person in history at putting a basketball through a rim when he's standing within 5-8 feet of the rim. That's a great skill to have and you take those genetics to build with any day, over just about anyone else's who has ever lived. I think everyone has always understood that part.
Now Bagley has to figure out how to do other good things. You can't be a superstar if all you can do at a not-terrible level is score inside and rebound. He has zero blocked shots, isn't drawing nearly enough fouls for his size and role, has 2 assists and 4 turnovers and, of course, is 2-9 from the line. You can certainly be a championship-caliber role player with that skill set (someone like Bagley could put the Celtics over the top and could take the Warriors from unbeatable to super unbeatable), but it doesn't sound like a superstar to me, as he is right now.
Bagley's overall performance even in these first two dominant games has been bad once you look beyond eye test highlights. He has the 8th best BPM in Duke's rotation. It's a negative 4.8. He's a negative on both offense and defense in BPM. His defensive rating is last among Duke's normal rotation big men, behind all of Carter, Bolden and DeLaurier. His offensive rating, which I wouldn't criticize him for given his high 28% usage, is 7th in the rotation.
Ironically, it looked like someone on this board was recently calling out Rome for his terrible takes, mainly citing Rome's assertion that Carter would be better than Bagley as a freshman despite Bagley being more highlight reel-friendly. Yet this is exactly the case through two games. Carter has been the better player by the advanced numbers, which is what most of us care about here, since they're much better predictors of future success than basic stats like points per game and rebounds per game.
Carter has the best BPM on the team, mainly due to his dominant defensive impact so far. Despite the "artificial" padding of defensive stats through defensive rebounding, Carter has better overall defensive stats (defensive rating and DBPM) than Bagley. Bagley is crushing on the defensive glass, at 24% defensive rebounding compared with Carter's 13%. If Carter played as much in them middle of the 2-3 zone as Bagley, the overall defensive stats would be even more strongly in Carter's favor. Carter's 15.5% block rate is likely unsustainable, but it draws attention to Bagley's 0% block rate thus far. The discrepancy follows what Carter and Bagley did in high school, where Carter put up massive shot block stats and Bagley was pedestrian in that respect.
Idiot Rome may have been correct after all. Only a fool would proclaim him wrong about a player comparison after two games against bad teams, but it takes next level stupidity to proclaim him wrong when the objective stats actually show he is right so far.
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That said, there's not going to be a "Bagley Theory" post this year. Because if it comes to that, there will be better things to spend our time on.
You're the greatest college coach ever and Bagley may have the best genes for playing basketball that have ever existed. Figure out a way to make Bagley a net positive basketball player. This can't be difficult.
You're the greatest college coach ever and Bagley may have the best genes for playing basketball that have ever existed. Figure out a way to make Bagley a net positive basketball player. This can't be difficult.
torontoduke
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I'm down for Duval theory, though.
deepdarkblue
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Yep, and probably being leased by someone like the wife or brother of a sports agent or a KU booster.
deepdarkblue
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Modern basketball is dead.
Slap the Floor
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Yet they only scored 65 points and played a much slower, boring, and sloppier game than Duke-MSU.
StopThePumpFakesShav
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It's time to start rooting against Kansas, Villanova, Arizona and Wichita State in the interest of the 1 seed race. Surprise surprise- all have pretty shitty schedules. The Big 12 sucks, the Pac 12 is disgusting and I don't even know what conference Wichita is in. The Big East isn't horrible but there are no other top 20 teams.