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Duke Basketball 2014-2015 Discussion thread

Physics -- I agree that Amile passed it away too often without considering shots, but I think independent of that, he got fewer touches than he should have. I mean, with two guards (pick 2), Hood, and Parker, that's a lot of guys who do best with the ball in their hands. That said, we never ran anything off the ball to intentionally free Amile, like we did occasionally for Jabari, Hood, and Dre.
 
It's silly speculating now when it's clear Justise will be everything we need, showing us how dumb we were to worry until he breaks his foot right before the tourney
 
Amile is just too good a teammate. Like Thornton, he will only make a move to score when there is a 70% chance he scores. The difference is that the array of situations where Amile has a 70% chance of scoring is broader than Thornton's. Thornton was 100% correct to be so unselfish. Amile could probably still be very efficient with 50% greater usage.
 
To clarify, I mean an increase from 15% usage to 22.5%...not an increase to 65%, which would be at greater-than-Pistol-Pete levels.
 
^the one thing I think we can depend on next year is continued improvement from Amile. Whether he develops a perimeter jumper or not, I expect him to continue to get stronger and accordingly more confident
 
Non-Conference Games (or potential games) on 2014-15 Schedule

1. Champions Classic vs. Michigan State (New York). MSU is likely to be much worse next year with the graduation of Payne and Appling, and the probable departure of likely lottery pick Gary Harris)

2. Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament (Brooklyn, NY) with Duke, Temple, UNLV, Stanford in the field. Temple will be terrible as they were this season. UNLV will return their core three seniors (Dejean-Jones, Roscoe Smith, Khem Birch) and add top ten recruit Rashad Vaughn- they are a likely tournament team although that group of now rising seniors underachieved this year, currently sitting at 90th in Kenpom. Stanford will lose two of its best four players to graduation, but will likely return Chasson Randle, its leading scorer.

3. Big Ten Challenge (road game). Wisconsin and Michigan are both due for home games and Duke is definitely due for a road game. Wisconsin could be preseason top 5 if they return Kaminsky, Jackson and Dekker (they lose Brust to graduation). Michigan may be losing Stauskas, McGary and/or Robinson. I would expect Duke to be either in Ann Arbor (if they keep their top talent) or Madison. Probably behooves us to play whatever team is better, because it's a "first true road game loss" in any event, so we might as well look good for the computers.
 
torontoduke said:
^the one thing I think we can depend on next year is continued improvement from Amile. Whether he develops a perimeter jumper or not, I expect him to continue to get stronger and accordingly more confident

He also seemed to be one of our few guys this year for whom the game seemed to slow down -- he doesn't get rattled easily. That will be an asset on another young team.
 
Poor Quinn. Hated by Coach K, hated by fan base. He has my heart, but I probably will only watch half the games after getting disgusted partway through the season.
 
Jefferson is the only one that really seems to deserve it at the moment.

Cook and Sulaimon can get there.

WTF would we do if Jefferson didn't agree to come to Duke despite the staff giving him the Heisman for like a year.
 
Probably belongs in the 2015-2016 thread but that doesn't exist yet (nor should it?) Anyway

2016 could potentially be:

PG: Tyus Jones - so
SG: Rasheed Sulaimon - sr, Matt Jones - jr, Grayson Allen - so, Luke Kennard - fr
SF: Justise Winslow - so, Semi Ojeleye - jr
PF: Amile Jefferson - sr, Chase Jeter - fr
C: Marshall Plumlee - sr

That's the championship team right there. Not 2015 with ball stoppers Okafor and Cook. 2016 is with 2 senior leaders, ultimate do everything wing, great depth at each skill, rough and tumble center, lengthy pesky Lance Thomas prototype, and pure, pass first point guard. Defense may actually get back into the 30s.

That's the team.
 
Redshirt senior Marshall will be so amazing.

I don't want to go too far, but that team could potentially even be top 10 in defense provided Tyus doesn't totally suck on that end.
 
I think 2005 UNC is the best case comp for this team, but way off in experience.

Raymond Felton
Rashad McCants
Jackie Manuel
Jawad Williams
Sean May

Marvin Williams
David Noel
Melvin Scott

Jawad was actually their most efficient offensive player and had decent usage (20%). I think he got only layups and other open looks, feeding off of the attention paid to May. Okafor and Jefferson should be a fairly similar frontcourt.

No great rim protectors or perimeter defenders other than Manuel, but they ended up with the #12 defense, probably in large part due to experience and playing together for years. Winslow will definitely rebound much more than Manuel.

Felton's numbers weren't amazing. Tyus Jones could match them if he's not overrated. McCants was very good, but Sulaimon seems ready to break out.

The offense won't be a problem. The defensive rebounding should be much improved even without Jabari, since Winslow rebounds and Hood never did. Maybe Jefferson and Sulaimon will be great defenders as juniors.
 
There seems to be at least some focus on the 5th year transfer waiver wire, and I really can't understand why. It's not as if next year's team doesn't have adequate talent (and size) at each position. I can't realistically see a situation where we'd want or need another guy unless we're expecting a transfer.
 
I just read one article on Obi, so I'm an expert. I'm ready to sign him up.

In a January, 2012 high school game, Obi scored 14 points and pulled down 30 rebounds.
It was the 30th consecutive game in which he logged a double-double.
Two days before that, he scored 24 points, had 23 rebounds and six blocks.

His freshman year at Rice, he led C-USA in rebounding and was ranked 4th in the conference in FG% (59.1%)
Nationally, he was the 30th ranked rebounder overall, and the 2nd ranked freshman.
In the negative column, he was a 54.4% free throw shooter
 
Obi apparently is a VERY good student and played AAU with Drummond. Since he'd sit out the one year we don't need size, I want to know who I need to funnel cash to to make this happen.
 

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