Duke Recruiting General Discussion

[rome8180]

Okay, in 6 minutes I've decided Troy Brown is a basketball genius. Hard to tell how good a prospect that makes him. He could be one of those guys who's so athletically and offensively challenged that no amount of savant-level passing can make up for it. He has a ridiculous and unnecessary arc on his shot, especially when you consider no guard is going to block him at his height.

I was initially confused by this video. It's not often that a highlight video will start with two minutes of passing.

 

[rome8180]

Literally every one of these players has the Duke starting five haircut.

I hope Pantone likes my use of literally.

 

[rome8180]

Gabriel is amazing.

 

[best4heisman]

It's clear that Wenyen is the best player on the court. Trent has a gorgeous shot.

 

[rome8180]

All of our prospects in this game have scored two minutes in.

 

[rome8180]

Lol at at having 6 and 3 already after three minutes.

 

[rome8180]

Lol. 9 and 3. WTF.

 

[rome8180]

This dude might end up top 5.

 

[Pantone287]

Childress was right.

Sorry, aiw.

 

[aiw]

He'll always be Rawl to me

 

[rome8180]

Don't watch the replay of that if you want to like Frank Jackson.

 

[Pantone287]

lol

I'm going to choose believe that was just a horrible game where he felt uncomfortable as an innocent Utahan child being added to a streetball team that already had ten top 100 players.

At least he was super bouncy and athletic with a great change of speed, missed his threes like a shooter (soft bounces), and had much better court sense than I expected. Defense was also solid when he wanted it to be. Most encouragingly to me, he seemed to see the floor like a real PG, which is nice - not just penetrate and dish, but keeping his head up and getting the ball where it needs to be in transition, etc.

Really, the only thing he didn't do well in the first half was knock down shots, which we know he can do. He kind of came unglued late with all those double-pump midranges and whatnot, but he didn't go to those shots early on, and he generally showed a willingness and ability to get all the way to the rim. I think it's reasonable to believe that he wouldn't play that way at Duke, especially with how coachable he seems.

I think I'm still super high on him despite that atrocity. Have to give him some benefit of the doubt given the praise he got earlier this summer.

 

[DurhamSon]

Jackson not screaming "OAD" actually helps us. No power struggle when he comes off the bench for Thornton in year 1, and we have an experienced guard in year two to play along with the Bambi/Carter class


That said, we are all experts after watching one game.

 

[rome8180]

Yeah, there's all the usual caveats about sample size. I just wished he had been a little less trigger happy. But some of his teammates were just as bad.

 

[Pantone287]

I thought he almost seemed unselfish to a fault in the first half - it was more in the second half that it seemed like he started to get frustrated and playing like an idiot, sort of like guys do near the end of all-star games when they haven't gotten theirs.

 

[DurhamSon]

I'm not sure how much difference it made wrt Jackson, but because of the Daenerys injury, it was Jackson who was moved from one roster to the other. So even though these squads hadn't been around very long, it was his first time playing with this particular group

 

[rome8180]

It could also be that his team was losing and he's a potent offensive player on a team he doesn't normally play with. Possibly felt some responsibility to bring them back into the game. Clearly he's not Tyus or Kyrie in that regard, since they basically would have shot 100% in a similar scenario.

For the record, I don't really agree with NOD's assessment of Jackson's game on TDD and I'm not sure where he gets a lot of his recruiting analysis from. He talked about Jackson having a rep for being an inconsistent shooter, which is not something I've ever heard. (I can post this since I know he never reads this particular forum.)

 

[Pantone287]

Yeah, the post he references just says "Even when his shot is not falling...". Wouldn't call that a reference to inconsistent shooting.

I hadn't realized he'd shot 47/41/77 this past HS season, obviously on incredibly high usage (27 PPG). That's huge. Shooting shouldn't be considered anything but a major strength with him at this point.

Edit: It's always encouraging to me when have a recruit that a) seems open to coaching, and b) is capable of doing everything you'd want from his position, even if he doesn't always do it right. In this case: lights out shooting, high-end burst and change of pace to get into the lane, big-time finisher, keep his head up and see the court (IMO), move his feet laterally on defense.

 

[rome8180]

NOD has a habit of speaking authoritatively about things that are very much open to debate.

On another note, Jackson made a comment in that article about defensive effort. I liked what I saw from him on defense tonight. In one-on-one situations he's capable of staying with his man. I couldn't really assess his team defense for obvious reasons.

How is Jackson's high school competition? I am always wary of a Semi situation, but it seems like in most games vs. major comp he's scored pretty easily. Dropped 28 on Dennis Smith (not sure if Smith was actually guarding him).

 

[Pantone287]

I assume Utah basketball is garbage, even in his 5A classification, but shooting %s should still translate, right? As for overall ability, I think it's encouraging that it was really this spring/summer that he blew up.