SeanMayTriedToEatMe said:

Pistons are obsessed with wingspan and generally pick 12 is a good spot to pick an unexpected faller, so I don't think Kennard is their pick. Wouldn't be surprised with Dennis Smith there, and then Reggie Jackson traded to a desperate win-now team like the Nets, for their 2020 1st round pick.

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That's just the sort of stupid trade I would expect the Nets to make. They probably would not even top 5 protect it.

Omer Yurtseven to return to NC State next season.

NC State getting set up to crush UNC.

deepdarkblue said:

Omer Yurtseven to return to NC State next season.

NC State getting set up to crush UNC.

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Keatts is going to do well at UNC. NC State could actually be in a nice position- they have a young, good coach and Coach K and Roy Williams are close to being out. I could see NC State going through a peak period if Duke and UNC are 'down' at the same time.

Just bad luck/timing in terms of his college career, oh well.

How many mirrors did K break while he was walking under that ladder that he scared the black cat off of?

From The Ringer:

Frank Jackson, Duke
Speaking of combo guards who are athletic freaks, Jackson finished among the top five in all but one athletic measurement at the combine. (To be fair, most of the top prospects in this draft didn’t participate in the combine.) He recorded the fastest shuttle-run (2.7 seconds), the second-best multistep vertical (42 inches), tied for the fourth-best standing vertical (34.5 inches), and the fifth-best three-quarter court sprint (3.14 seconds). All that’s left now is for Jackson to awkwardly rock back and forth on a mat 50 times in a minute as some 8-year-old holds his ankles, and I think he’ll have done enough to earn the Presidential Physical Fitness Award.
Jackson was a slightly surprising entrant in this draft given that he was overshadowed and somewhat out of place during his lone season at Duke, and he could have been a sophomore star for the Blue Devils had he opted to return to campus. Duke lacked a true point guard on its roster in 2016–17, so Jackson, a natural shooting guard, was forced to step into the role — a responsibility that grew especially crucial when Grayson Allen’s campaign self-destructed as a byproduct of drama and injuries. As frustrating as this experience probably was for Jackson, it could benefit his development. The 6-foot-4 Jackson has the skill set to play point guard in the league, yet if his freshman season at Duke is any indication — he averaged 1.7 assists and 10.9 points while shooting 47.3 percent from the field — the man has more of a mind for getting buckets than setting up teammates.

Also from The Ringer, echoing our thoughts about Semi's NFL prospects:

Semi Ojeleye, SMU
Ojeleye stands 6-foot-7 and 241 pounds with less than 6 percent body fat. If you aren’t great at deciphering those numbers, allow me to help: They mean that he’s built like a Greek god who could probably get drafted as an NFL tight end, even if he hasn’t played a single snap of football in his life. Ojeleye has a tremendous work ethic and can guard at least four positions, and after deciding to transfer to SMU in 2014 because he barely saw the court during his first two seasons at Duke, he expanded his offensive game and became a reliable and versatile scorer.
Speaking of which: Isn’t it kinda interesting how “tweener” used to be a degrading term used by scouts to describe a guy who didn’t have a natural position and would always feel out of place on the court, yet now it’s a term of endearment that’s synonymous with versatility? Ten years ago Ojeleye would have been dismissed as someone too short to play power forward and not skilled enough to play small forward. Now, though, scouts and fans have the smarts to see him for who he is: a damn good basketball player who could help any NBA roster in a variety of ways. I’m not sure what the best use of Ojeleye will be, although I suspect his destiny is to be a 3-and-D guy. I just know that if I were a general manager, I’d do what I could to get him on my team and then figure the rest out later.

The only knock against Frank that I've heard is that he's a 2-footed jumper and not one-footed. He obviously should have returned to Duke for another year to learn one-footed jumping from K.

Normally a big fan of Box score geeks, but ranking of prospects puts the Duke guys in an odd order:
(best to worst by their wins produced metric)
Amile
Luke
Matt
Grayson
Tatum

http://www.boxscoregeeks.com/articles/a ... ch-collins

(You have to download the spreadsheet linked in the article to see the full list.)

It looks like they are purely looking at advanced metrics rather than potential.

rome8180 said:

It looks like they are purely looking at advanced metrics rather than potential.

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That's what it looks like to me too. The odd thing is that Matt Jones apparently has better advanced metrics than Grayson Allen. I was a big fan of Matt his whole time here, but that is baffling to me. Someone put out a list earlier in the season showing Matt to be historically bad at a bunch of efficiency metrics IIRC...

This was the post that I was remembering...


Re: Matt Jones

Postby SeanMayTriedToEatMe » Fri Mar 10, 2017 1:35 pm

Matt's last 6 games:

32.3 minutes per game
7-34 FG (20.6% FG)
5-17 2pt (29.4% 2pt)
2-17 3pt (11.8% 3pt)
3.0 points per game
2.3 rebounds per game
1.3 assists per game
1.7 steals per game
0.2 blocks per game
1.2 turnovers per game
2.0 fouls per game

You can't have this on the court for 32 minutes. Unplayable. Even Kawhi Leonard and Draymond Green would be unplayable if they put up these numbers. Needs fixing.

or maybe it was this one?


Postby SeanMayTriedToEatMe » Thu Nov 24, 2016 10:51 am

Time to check in with hoop-math.com to see if this senior captain is as dumb with shot selection as he looks...
http://www.hoop-math.com/Duke2017.php

Yes, he is that dumb with shot selection.

First, let's give Jones some credit - only 12% of his shots have been 2pt jumpers (i.e., not layups or 3s). He's smarter than any Duke player other than Jefferson in that respect. Let's not give Jones too much credit, though - he's shooting 29% on 2pt jumpers, which is by far the worst on the team, so that 12% number should be closer to 0% if Jones is really smart.

Now, let's understand how stupid this idiot has been in all other ways.

Last season, for a large sample size comparison:
http://www.hoop-math.com/Duke2016.php

22% of shots are at rim
40% FG at rim (atrocious; worst on team; next worst non-Thornton was 59% by Ingram, much higher)
17% FTA/FGA (worst on team; next worst non-Thornton was 30% by Kennard, much higher; means his drives to rim are not justified by drawing lots of fouls)
60% of shots are 3pt
42% 3FG (basic math - Jones scores over 1.2 points per 3pt attempt, whereas he scores 0.8 points per layup attempt, so in the best case scenario where he is successful at getting all the way to the rim instead of settling for a 2pt jumper or turning the ball over on a drive, he is costing Duke 0.4 points per possession on his drives; again, costing his team roughly 0.4 points on average is the best case scenario when he decides to drive)

This season:

32% of shots are at rim
47% FG at rim (still very bad, especially considering the relatively weak schedule thus far; tied for worst on team with Allen, who may as well be dead on the court; next worst is Vrankovic at 57%)
13% FTA/FGA (still worst on team by far; still doesn't justify drives to rim)
57% of shots are 3pt
41% 3FG (still great, still makes Jones look like an idiot for taking other shots)

Finally, let's try to give Jones some credit again - he does in fact take a lot of 3s and he doesn't try all that many layups, so generally, he has the right idea. The question becomes, is it feasible for a player like Jones, who is great on 3s but awful on any other shot, to be any more extreme with his preference for 3pt attempts? Maybe it's simply a necessity to drive enough to keep the defense honest so that Jones can continue to be so prolific from 3.

Can we find examples of 3pt specialists who are even more skewed than having double or nearly triple (Jones last season) the 3pt attempt rate compared with layup rate?

Yes, we can, so no, we shouldn't give Jones any credit for this awful shot selection.

You may recall a Duke player whose name has since been sullied by arguably the worst Duke basketball player ever, Derryck Thornton. In his senior season, Tyler Thornton, a basketball god of shot selection, was everything Jones should be on offense now.

Here are Tyler Thornton's numbers from the 2014 season:
http://www.hoop-math.com/Duke2014.php

11% of shots are at rim (wow!)
38% FG at rim (terrible, like Jones)
28% FTA/FGA (much better than Jones, but didn't tempt Thornton to drive more)
80% of shots are 3pt (3pt attempts almost EIGHT TIMES more frequent than layup attempts!)
45% 3FG (great, like Jones)

Here's the real ass-kicker: 67% of Thornton's layups were assisted, as opposed to being on individual forays to the basket not set up in the flow of the offense, whereas 11% of Jones's layups this season are assisted, and 19% of Jones's layups last season were assisted. Jones is actively, affirmatively, idiotically deciding to drive on his own and ignore the talent around him.

No worries, though. We have the best coaching staff in college basketball to teach Jones how to fix this. If everyone in the world can see the glaring problem, certainly they can. After four seasons, they will finally get his head on straight.
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Jones had some very bad stretches with his three-point shooting. But overall, he was pretty good there. IIRC, he also almost never turned the ball over.

Allen had a pretty inefficient year, especially when compared to his godlike sophomore season.

I think you're looking at the wrong column. You're looking at wins produced, rather than WP/40, which would make more sense.

Remember, Matt didn't miss a game, and these other guys did (Grayson missed 3); moreover, Matt averaged 3 more mpg than Grayson when he did play.

Am I the only one that likes Dennis Smith as a prospect more than anyone else in the draft? He just seems like he has all the skills to be an all star caliber player.