Duke Draft Prospects

[Duke4life831]

Just thought I would start this because I think Duke has enough guys to talk about and I can get pretty long winded and detailed when talking about my Duke guys, so thought a dedicated thread to them would be more be a more appropriate place for the more long winded and detailed posts, instead of making the overall draft thread harder to read haha.

Main Duke draft prospects:
Paolo
Wendell Moore
Trevor Keels
Mark Williams

Questionables:
Jeremy Roach
AJ???

The way I personally see them at the moment.
Paolo: top 2 pick
Moore: Late lotto
Keels: mid-late 1st
Mark: mid-late 1st

Marcus or Ruzious, if y'all dont want to do theads like this, this year. Its all good just lock it up or merge and tell me to chill with my homerism haha.

[BigGargamel]

Agree fully. I have all four in my first round.

https://sportsgamingrosters.com/2021/11/27/2022-nba-mock-draft-extended-version-v-1/

(sorry for the plug!)

I don't know if Moore will quite go lottery because those teams go more after potential, but for a playoff team looking for that Chris Duarte type, he's perfect. Can shoot, handle the ball and play defense. Glad to see him finally realize his potential.

[Duke4life831]

Agree fully. I have all four in my first round.

https://sportsgamingrosters.com/2021/11/27/2022-nba-mock-draft-extended-version-v-1/

(sorry for the plug!)

I don't know if Moore will quite go lottery because those teams go more after potential, but for a playoff team looking for that Chris Duarte type, he's perfect. Can shoot, handle the ball and play defense. Glad to see him finally realize his potential.

I think one benefit Moore will have is his age. He is pretty much the age of a sophomore and not a junior.

3 months younger than Mobley
3 months younger than Suggs
1 month younger than Barnes
1 week older than Cade

All of those guys would be Sophomores this year. So age wise that wont be held too much against him. I also think with this not looking like the most stacked lotto, if he can keep this level of play up. I can see a team taking him in the late lotto because of his versatility on both ends.

[clyde21]

so what's gonna happen to Griff now? just gonna ride the bench? should he pull a JJ and dip?

[Duke4life831]

so what's gonna happen to Griff now? just gonna ride the bench? should he pull a JJ and dip?

I honestly think if he dips early or stays for the rest of the year and declares, it could be a Kahlil Whitney situation. The situations are pretty similar.

Athletic 6'6 guard/wings who were ranked 11th in their class by 247. Both didnt show much early on in the season and ended up out of the rotation. Whitney ended up going undrafted.

You can take that risk if your AJ and have the thought process of wanting to either make the NBA or play in the G League regardless and get out of college ball. Or he could transfer.

As a Duke fan I will say Keels/Moore/Paolo/Mark will be gone next year. That is 4 out of the starting 5 will be gone. They have a stacked class coming in but its mostly bigs. Whitehead is a wing but that is only 1 elite wing coming in. So Duke could be looking at another good team next year and an open starting spot for AJ to fill. He could be thinking he could have a Wendell Moore kind of turn around and rebuild his draft like Moore has (but in 2 years and not 3).

It will be very interesting to see what he does. But unless there is an injury, he wont be in the rotation this year. K is in clear championship mode with this team. Its obvious when he feels like he has a team that can win it all. That rotation gets tight early in the season and he will ride it all season long. He has his 7 man rotation locked in with this team already.

[TraBuch]

I have a really hard time seeing Griffin going the Jalen Johnson route. Dude’s a huge Duke fan, he was the first commit of this class like two years ago. I think Griffin has the mentality where he’s gonna practice his ass off to get playing time.

[CptCrunch]

Griffin is gonna get drafted by his daddy in Toronto.

He should just fake an injury and pull out this year. Go hide in Canada like Thon Maker for a year. Ride his RSCI ranking residual effects to a lotto pick.

[akhan786]

The situation on AJ is that he still isn’t fully 100% yet in getting his feet under him. The Duke staff fully expects that to change and are banking on it to reach their full potential in March. He still doesn’t have his full lift yet. His family doesn’t want K to overdo it so stop trying to blame him. This is how you handle a valuable physical specimen that hasn’t gotten his league contract yet. Especially when he’s been out for 2 years and needs to relearn how to trust his body.

[Duke4life831]

Pretty weak showing all around on the offensive end for everyone involved last night not named Moore. Paolo needs to add a little variety to his game, he's too willing to float around the perimeter. He and K both need to take advantage of his size and strength and use him down low more often. Not saying that should be the only way he is used, but when everyone's shot including his has gone cold, draw up a play that gets him in the low post to take advantage of his size and strength.

Keels continues to be an abomination on the offensive end. Outside of the UK game, he is averaging 10ppg on 10.6 shots and a beautiful 31/30/66 shooting line.

[Duke4life831]

The situation on AJ is that he still isn’t fully 100% yet in getting his feet under him. The Duke staff fully expects that to change and are banking on it to reach their full potential in March. He still doesn’t have his full lift yet. His family doesn’t want K to overdo it so stop trying to blame him. This is how you handle a valuable physical specimen that hasn’t gotten his league contract yet. Especially when he’s been out for 2 years and needs to relearn how to trust his body.

Lets put an accurate timeline on this:
January 2020: hurt his knee and would've returned that season but COVID cut the season short
Early Spring 2021: Had a very minor ankle injury and chose to focus on practicing for the upcoming college season instead of playing high school spring basketball
Duke summer sessions: practices with the team
Oct 8th: Sprains his knee
Oct 26th: He is practicing with the team in full drills

Okay so took spring to focus on training and was with Duke and practice with them all summer up until Oct 8th when he hurt his knee and was out for 2.5 weeks. He's been fully practicing for over a month now. He himself came out 2 weeks ago saying he is 100% healthy and fully back physically.

What we are seeing isn't someone being protected from overdoing it. If that was the case, AJ would have a minute cap for each game. He couldn't play more than 15 or 20 minutes a game, we see that all the time. AJ played 18 minutes in the exhibition which was over a month ago. He played 16 minutes against Gardner-Webb then followed that up with 21 minutes against Lafayette 3 days later. He has played 8 minutes total in the last 2 games.

No minute restriction, no knee brace, since summer practice he has missed 2.5 weeks of practice and has been back fully practicing for over a month. When he gets into games he has a very short leash and not because of anything physical. Last game for example, was in the game for 1 minute, took a pull up midrange shot and was off. The second that shot missed, the sub was on his way to the scorers table.

That's not a physical thing, that is a being out of K's rotation thing. I think anyone who has watched enough K can easily tell who is and isn't in K's rotation. If you arent in the rotation and you see time on the court, you need to perfect because the first mistake you get pulled and youre done. That has been K's thing since the early 2000s. He has extremely tight rotations and plays a very short bench.

[jezzerinho]

AJG is beginning to show why he was a preseason top 5 player in a lot of people's eyes.

Let's see how the kid progresses but the signs are excellent. As a Magic fan, I'm probably predisposed to value what AJ has over some of the other prospects but he has a truly tantalizing skillset and an IQ way ahead of a lot of his peers.

[Duke4life831]

Ill gladly admit when I was wrong and I look really dumb with my takes of not believing AJ would be able to crack the rotation. Been far too many times in the past seeing talented guys lose their spot in the rotation and never having a chance of getting back in it.

Virginia Tech isnt great, but it was a conference game and AJ was the first one off the bench and Duke was actually down at the half and AJ still was coming in while Duke was down.

My next question is, if the AJ that has shown up recently continues to show up, how much longer until he is part of the starting lineup? Having a hard time seeing why Roach remains in the starting lineup over AJ.

AJ is the better shooter, he is the better rebounder, and he would give Duke a ridiculously versatile defensive perimeter with Moore/Keels/AJ.

[Duke4life831]

One thing Ive really began to notice because a buddy brought it up to me and now I look for it. Duke runs 0 off ball screens in their offense. Like I dont think there was a single off ball screen in today's game against Miami.

That is how basic of an offense K runs now. It is Mark Jackson level of offense that Duke runs. If you go back to JJ's days at Duke, he would be running off of 2-3 off ball screens like every possession. There is nothing like that nowadays with Duke. Even if youre not super high on AJ Griffin's NBA potential, the dude has essentially been a 50% 3pt shooter in ACC play. You would think K would go back in his bag and pull out some old sets he used to get JJ some open looks. Ya AJ probably isnt the off ball mover that JJ was, but still set some screens and draw up some plays to at least try to get him open looks.

Duke essentially runs 2 different kinds of offense.

1. Run a basic weave 2-3 times, if nothing opens up from that someone can just then try to go 1 on 1.
2. Just go 1 on 1 to start the possession

That is basically it. We've seen this with previous teams.

Duval/Grayson/Trent/Bagley/WCJ:
You think with a team like that you would just be spamming PnR. 2 sharpshooters, 2 bigs that are lob threats or pick and pop threats. Nope barely ran the PnR. I believe out of all the top bigs in the draft that year, Bagley and WCJ were involved in the PnR the least amount.

Tre/Cam/RJ/Zion:
Lets see you have a great college floor general in Tre. Maybe try some PnR with him and Zion. Or how bout this, what college could stop a RJ/Zion PnR game? Im not sure Zion was involved in the PnR more than 10 times that year.

I just feel like with a team with Paolo, AJ, Moore, Keels, Mark. AJ is shooting 50% from 3, Moore is shooting 43% from 3, Keels is shooting 35% from 3, and Mark is an elite lob threat in college. I dont know with Paolo's passing ability from the high post. I would think one of the main things this Duke's offense would be doing is getting the ball to Paolo around the elbow, run some off ball screens for AJ and the perimeter guys. Something more than just weaves or 1 on 1. K is just lucky he goes into every single game with a massive talent advantage. That is the only reason Duke doesnt get embarrassed every game.

The main reason I have big hopes for Scheyer is 2010 was what I felt like was the last of the elite K era. Scheyer's 2010 team was a well oiled team both offensively and defensively. So Im hoping Scheyer brings some of that and not just roll the ball out and hope the players can do something. Yearly rant of K mismanaging his roster over.

[Kobblehead]

Any correlation between Coach K's offensive apathy and Duke's increased participation in getting the 1-and-done type prospects?

[SeattleJazzFan]

Any correlation between Coach K's offensive apathy and Duke's increased participation in getting the 1-and-done type prospects?

yep, watching duke vs va tech with d4l's post in mind i have to wonder of it's a product of running what works best with the personnel he has on the roster. maybe these younger guys simply don't do well with the off the ball stuff. maybe simplifying, going one on one and making plays out that is what suits them best.

[clyde21]

Any correlation between Coach K's offensive apathy and Duke's increased participation in getting the 1-and-done type prospects?

pretty much - guess there's no point in establishing any type of system if you're gonna be getting a new team every yr.

[Duke4life831]

Any correlation between Coach K's offensive apathy and Duke's increased participation in getting the 1-and-done type prospects?

yep, watching duke vs va tech with d4l's post in mind i have to wonder of it's a product of running what works best with the personnel he has on the roster. maybe these younger guys simply don't do well with the off the ball stuff. maybe simplifying, going one on one and making plays out that is what suits them best.

This is the part that frustrates me the most, because I dont think they're running what works best for the personnel on the roster. And most of the time its pretty basic offense that would work great for his rosters.

Again when you got a Tre Jones as your PG and Zion as your 4. You would think running PnR with those two would be a basic staple in the offense. Or try having a college defense match up with a RJ/Zion PnR. But again I wouldnt be shocked if Zion wasn't involved in a PnR more than 10 times that entire season.

I think its more to the point of hey you OADs are super talented Im going to give you the ball and just let you do your thing. And he gets these super stacked teams talent wise and just from a massive talent advantage it works for the majority of the season. But throughout the season the red flags are flashed and by the end of the year, teams have scouted Duke to death and figured out how to slow them down. Its the complete lack of even attempting to coach and implement the most basic of systems that really frustrates me over the last decade.

And ya I think once he started getting OADs I think he has just felt it was easier to roll the ball out and let them try and do something, rather than take the time and takes the bumps and bruises throughout the season to implement a basic offensive system.

[CptCrunch]

No one likes Wendell Moore like me?

Here is my big board of Duke prospects (where they should go followed by where they will do), don't think Roach is going to declare but he could make a roster if he does declare.

Name - should go, (will go)
Paolo - #2 full stop, (2-4)
Griffin - around 5-10, (5-8)
Keels - around 8-14 (10-20)
Moore - around 14-20 (14-30)
Williams - around 18-30 (14-25)
Roach - 55+ (55+)

[Duke4life831]

No one likes Wendell Moore like me?

Here is my big board of Duke prospects (where they should go followed by where they will do), don't think Roach is going to declare but he could make a roster if he does declare.

Name - should go, (will go)
Paolo - #2 full stop, (2-4)
Griffin - around 5-10, (5-8)
Keels - around 8-14 (10-20)
Moore - around 14-20 (14-30)
Williams - around 18-30 (14-25)
Roach - 55+ (55+)

Out of the Duke guys I like Moore the 4th best. I think most likely Moore finds himself as a versatile rotation guard, probably not a starter. He just doesn't really excel at any aspect of the game, just solid-good in a bunch of areas.

[Justwar]

No one likes Wendell Moore like me?

Here is my big board of Duke prospects (where they should go followed by where they will do), don't think Roach is going to declare but he could make a roster if he does declare.

Name - should go, (will go)
Paolo - #2 full stop, (2-4)
Griffin - around 5-10, (5-8)
Keels - around 8-14 (10-20)
Moore - around 14-20 (14-30)
Williams - around 18-30 (14-25)
Roach - 55+ (55+)

Out of the Duke guys I like Moore the 4th best. I think most likely Moore finds himself as a versatile rotation guard, probably not a starter. He just doesn't really excel at any aspect of the game, just solid-good in a bunch of areas.

I don't mean to create a big debate on it but do you feel Dukes underachieving considering they have young stars and experience? I feel like they peaked very early. I've heard that K and scheyer dynamic has players kind of confused