Player Vernon Carey, Jr.

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Passed by Devon Dotson and Luka Garza on kPOY. This draft keeps looking worse and worse, which seems impossible. Carey is on track to fall back into the late 1st round.

 

[physicsfactor]

The fuck is Luka Garza?

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Exactly.

 

[Inveigle]

The B1G is filled this season with overrated teams that can beat each other up: Purdue and Minnesota each have 8 losses in what is considered by the talking heads as the "toughest league" this year and Garza is averaging a double-double thru 18 games (22.9 ppg/10.2 rpg) and 30.4 MPG-



So, if Carey was getting about 6 more minutes a game his numbers would dwarf even Garza's

 

[Slap the Floor]

Carey either had a bad week or he came down to earth but whatever it was wasn’t good.

 

[rome8180]

The fuck is Luka Garza?

I just googled him. What team do you imagine him playing for and what do you think he looks like?

You're right. He's a 6'11" guy who plays for Iowa, hits 38% on threes, and looks like this:

 

[childress22]

I'll take the contrary position. "Luka" and "Garza" sounds too ethnic for my own personal stereotype of Iowa basketballers. Second-leading scorer Joe Wieskamp sounds more on the nose.

I would have guessed Luka Garza would be like the one foreign non-African-American dude on Seton Hall.

 

[rome8180]

Sounds to me like the lone big foreign oaf on any number of Midwestern teams over the years.

 

[rhfarmer]

Looks like a giant Matt Dillon

 

[dukeboy911]

Those fucking eyebrows. Makes Eugene Levy's pale in comparison.

 

[rome8180]

Happy to see him get back to being good again.

 

[aiw]

Back up to #2 kPOY, 0.05 behind Garza

 

[dukeboy911]

What a bounce back game.

 

[rome8180]

Yeah, way to bounce back from that 26 and 13 he had in the last game.

 

[dukeboy911]

More in reference to how he’s played over the past month compared to the beginning of the season

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Carey is back to #1 on kPOY, slightly ahead of Dotson, Garza, Howard and Toppin.

Lately, he has been playing more minutes despite more foul trouble, which is a sign that K will rightfully try to put him on the court as much as possible in March. Starting with the loss at Clemson, his average minutes per game has been around 30 with 3-4 fouls in every single game. Before that game, he was typically in the low-to-mid-20s with 1-2 fouls in each game.

The workload doesn't seem to affect him. 31% usage with 116 ORtg is phenomenal. A very small percentage of players pull of 115+ ORtg combined with 30%+ usage against a high major schedule. Jabari Parker 2014 and Nolan Smith 2011 were the only other players in Duke Kenpom history with over 30% usage, and they were at 111 and 112 ORtg, respectively. Those were two of the best individual scorers ever at Duke, and Carey has been significantly better.

The best individual season in terms of offensive efficiency, considering usage level, in Duke Kenpom history was probably JJ Redick in 2006 (29% usage, 120 ORtg).

 

[rome8180]

"Jabari Parker 2014 and Nolan Smith 2011 were the only other players in Duke Kenpom history with over 30% usage."

Sports-reference.com has RJ at 32% usage with a 110.7 ORTG. Then again, sports-reference clearly calculates ORTG and usage differently than Kenpom does. It has Nolan at 116.8 for example, instead of the figure you listed.

If we go by sports-reference's numbers, I'd say that Zion's 133.1 with 28% usage is more impressive than JJ's.

 

[physicsfactor]

I can only assume SM left RJ off his list out of spite. Kenpom has RJ at 31.5% usage, 108 ORtg

 

[rome8180]

I wonder what Kenpom is doing that makes both usage and ORTG come out lower. The sports-reference numbers are in line with other sites I've seen.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

I think I looked at 2019 to check Zion’s numbers, was disappointed to see RJ, and never went back to 2019.