Depth and the Devils: The Worries of Duke’s Shrinking Rotation
Posted by Shane McNichol on December 23rd, 2015Over the last decade, Mike Krzyzewski’s teams at Duke have shifted toward the new era of college basketball. Duke brings in NBA-bound one-and-done players at a much higher rate than it once did, possibly even surpassing John Calipari — the recent king of transcendent freshman — at his own game. Including this season, the Blue Devils have spent the last three years among the 100 youngest teams in America in terms of college basketball experience.
This year’s team includes three freshman receiving a heavy dosage of minutes yet appears to rely on more veterans than last year’s group. That would imply that these Blue Devils returned a reasonable amount of production from last year’s National Championship squad, but a little digging reveals that’s not really the case. The four Blue Devils who played the highest percentage of the team’s available minutes last year departed after the season. This year’s team may be slightly older, but the experience they bring is somewhat misleading. Of the seven players to log time in Duke’s most recent game versus Utah, only one player, Matt Jones, received more than 25 percent of Duke’s available minutes last season.
This Duke team now finds itself at a crossroads. Things could certainly be a lot worse than a 9-2 record and an AP top 15 ranking, but last weekend’s loss to the Utes at Madison Square Garden revealed some potential issues. Krzyzewski had counted on a strong senior year from Amile Jefferson, and the big man had obliged by averaging a double-double driven by the nation’s 14th-best offensive rebounding rate. A fractured foot, however, sidelined him for the Utah game and will keep him out of the lineup for the indefinite future. Utah took full advantage of his absence in the post over the weekend, as Jakob Poeltl and Kyle Kuzma combined for 40 points and 22 rebounds on 17-of-30 shooting.
Unless Krzyzewski has a magical growth potion hidden in his office, that issue is unlikely to improve any time soon. The Blue Devils’ rotation necessarily shrunk to merely six players down the stretch against Utah, with 6’10″ freshman Chase Jeter acting as the seventh man, collecting no points, two fouls, and two turnovers in six minutes of play. That group of six included four guards, center Marshall Plumlee, and forward Brandon Ingram. Small ball may be the talk of the current basketball world, but Ingram, who is listed at 6’9″ and 190 pounds, is not yet capable of significant minutes at the power forward position. Even worse, 6’5″ guard Luke Kennard has played 12 percent of Duke’s available minutes at the four position in their last five games. This, by itself, is not a death sentence. Villanova head coach Jay Wright would chuckle at the notion that three or even four guards are incapable of playing well together, but Krzyzewski has his work cut out in finding a way to make it work.
The ACC scheduling gods, at least, have smiled favorably on Jefferson’s injury. The Blue Devils’ first three conference games, two of which are on the road, all come against teams ranking outside the KenPom top 100 (Boston College, Wake Forest, and Virginia Tech). Duke’s schedule does not include the likes of Pittsburgh, Miami, Louisville, North Carolina or Virginia until January 25, around the time when Jefferson could start targeting his return. This leaves Krzyzewski in an interesting spot. For the eight to 10 games while Jefferson heals, his team will need to learn to play smaller and faster. When Jefferson returns for the stretch run, the senior will have the pleasure of returning to the floor amid the rigors of a brutally backloaded conference slate.
Even envisioning a best-case scenario where the schedule and Jefferson’s return result in a top-two seed in the NCAA Tournament, it may not be enough to propel the Blue Devils back to the Final Four. Duke only has seven players seeing the court for more than 20 percent of its possible time. Of the 40 teams that have reached the Final Four in the last 10 seasons, only nine had fewer than eight players reach that 20 percent threshold of their team’s minutes (oddly enough, three of those teams were Calipari teams at Kentucky). Succeeding with such a short bench is certainly not impossible, but overcoming such a limitation usually requires something special from the players getting those minutes. Grayson Allen will need to carry his All-American credentials to this point all the way through the conference schedule. Derryck Thornton will need to grow into a fully capable freshman point guard. Ingram will need to play up to his NBA Draft status all season long. If not, when we get to the postseason, Duke is more likely to spend April’s first weekend in Durham rather than in Houston.
Shane McNichol is a national columnist for Rush The Court. He is also the founder, editor, and writer at PalestraBack.com and has contributed to SALTMoney.org and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter @OnTheShaneTrain.
