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Player Derryck Thornton

If your eye test tells you Derryck Thornton just had one of the least valuable seasons in the past several seasons of Duke basketball, your eye test is wrong. Thornton actually had the absolute least valuable season, by an extremely wide margin, in the past several seasons of Duke basketball.

Sports-Reference.com maintains win shares per 40 minutes for every player since the 2009-10 season. Below I have listed the bottom 7 for Duke during that time, excluding Thornton and with a very low minimum of 100 minutes just to exclude walk-ons and other garbage time players. I included 7 instances because there is a large gap between these 7 and the next worst instance.

Josh Hairston 2010-11, freshman, 165 minutes: 0.090 win shares per 40 minutes
Josh Hairston 2011-12, sophomore, 246 minutes: 0.081 win shares per 40 minutes
Alex Murphy 2012-13, freshman, 194 minutes: 0.081 win shares per 40 minutes
Josh Hairston 2012-13, junior, 444 minutes: 0.079 win shares per 40 minutes
Josh Hairston 2013-14, senior, 284 minutes: 0.075 win shares per 40 minutes
Chase Jeter 2015-16, freshman, 254 minutes: 0.071 win shares per 40 minutes
Matt Jones 2013-14, freshman, 235 minutes: 0.070 win shares per 40 minutes

Josh Hairston kind of stands out here. Not only was he extremely bad for his entire career, he got worse every season according to this metric. Hopefully, Hairston is a one-time-only anomaly in human history.

Now, turn to Thornton:

Derryck Thornton 2015-16, freshman, 935 minutes: 0.048 win shares per 40 minutes

0.048 is 31% worse than 0.070, the 2nd worst number over this span, put up by Matt Jones as a freshman. 0.048 is 36% worse than 0.075, the worst number ever put up by Hairston. Not only is 0.048 the worst number by any non-walk-on or garbage time player at Duke in the past 7 seasons, it is the worst by an enormous margin.

We cannot draw sweeping conclusions about how a freshman's career will play out based on an extraordinarily bad first season. However, this is a hell of a starting point to have to improve from, and unlike Thornton's classmate, Chase Jeter, there were no obvious signs of improvement throughout the season.
 


This guy knew Thornton was transferring and Allen was coming back several hours before 247 reported on these things. @watdaLiqWEED is a must-follow.
 
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Only a troll would say Duke pushed out the only experienced PG on the roster in order to land yet another big man, while choosing to keep Obi, Vrank, and Jeter on scholarships. That narrative is so ludicrous.
 
I can't figure out to read twitter.
 
DT's uncle says he shot jumpers off the dribble for hours...as if we're supposed to be impressed.
 
Any way you slice it, K was quite the asshole here. Pushing Thornton out for Bolden = ruthless coach. Keeping Vrankovic over Thornton = racist coach. Keeping Obi over Thornton = coach having sex with Obi.
 
I try not to care or pay attention to the 'hot takes' by the likes of Matt Jones on social media...but that is just a flat out lie.

The Duke program is not the one who was 'pushing' DT out the door.

Slap the Floor said:
Topher absolutely slayed that douche bag Matt Jones.
Click to expand...
 





Let's dispel with the notion that not knowing what you're doing in any aspect of basketball means you're a "true point guard." Or maybe that's exactly what "true point guard" means now - a euphemism for any guard who sucks at everything. When I watch Steve Blake somehow log big minutes in the NBA playoffs coming up, I guess I will think, "now THAT is a true point guard." Lourawls "Tum Tum" Nairn was perhaps the ultimate true point guard for MSU last season, and then Thornton came around and raised the bar for how much fans could make excuses for a player who, on paper, was just the worst at all things.

Derryck Thornton 2016
16.7% assist rate
17.8% turnover rate
1.6 assist/turnover ratio

Grayson Allen 2016
19.4% assist rate
10.2% turnover rate
1.8 assist/turnover ratio

Matt Jones 2016
12.5% assist rate
10.6% turnover rate
2.0 assist/turnover ratio

Luke Kennard 2016
10.8% assist rate
6.8% turnover rate
2.0 assist/turnover ratio

How will Duke replace its only caretaker type, it's only pass-first guard?
 
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I have no reason not to wish DT success wherever he goes to school.

How the FUCK could one say that he was not given every chance to succeed this year? People complain about Matt Jones playing point; the obvious reason MJ played point was because of DT's turnover/decision making issues (which are understandable to a degree from a 1st year player).

The coaches handled him exactly how they should have.
 
I apologize in advance for this long post. Just thought this needed to be posted. And I was amused how Sean Dockery and Alex Murphy got worked into the conversation. Unc gets bonus points for that. There's more in his timeline. These are just the highlights.




















 
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