The Elusive Post Presence

I’m not sure of the timing since the quote was public the day five star 2012 super-recruit Mitch McGary chose to attend Michigan over Duke, but WRAL/99TheFan personality Joe Ovies decided to run with a blog post today discussing McGary’s decision to snub the Blue Devils and the seemingly annual inability for Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski to land a dominant post presence.  McGary had some glowing reviews for the Duke program, its players, and the coaching staff, but also dropped this interesting nugget when explaining his decision not to spend his collegiate career in Durham:

 

“Despite liking Duke’s style of play, McGary said a big con for the Devils “would be the perception that all their big men do is set screens and rebound and that they don’t get a lot of touches.”"

 

Whether Duke fans want to hear it or not, it’s a fair question to ask.  Why does Duke continue to miss out on post-player prospects?  Duke has not had a dominant post player since Shelden Williams, and even in the case of Duke’s all-time leading shot blocker and rebounder, Williams’ forte was on the defensive end despite having a nice offensive skill set as well.  Between the end of Williams’ career, Duke has missed on many top post prospects and seems poised to miss out on another as Georgia big man Tony Parker is rumored to be headed anywhere other than Duke.

The answers are widespread, ranging from “Duke sucks” to the slightly more creative conclusion that Duke’s staff is full of point guards so they can’t develop post players.  McGary’s comment is extremely plausible, especially among kids who have much shorter memories than Duke fans who point to guys like Carlos Boozer and Elton Brand who both anchored Duke’s offensive attack during Coach K’s most dominant era on the recruiting trail.  During the timeframe that Coach K has struck out in landing a post threat, he’s coached players like JJ Redick, Luol Deng, Gerald Henderson, Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Kyrie Irving.  Given the choice of running the offense through Gerald Henderson or Brian Zoubek, I think any coach in their right mind would run those elite-level guards/wings off of as many screens as their big men could set.  Especially at Duke where Coach K’s “thing” is tailoring the offense to showcase his biggest weapons.  So which came first?  The lack of big men?  Or the guard-heavy offense?

I think you can look no further than the Redick years for the answer.  During the time JJ Redick attended Duke, the Blue Devils’ level of exposure reached a point that had never been seen before in collegiate athletics.  Coming off of a national championship in 2001 with arguably the most talented Duke team ever, Redick began his career that would wind up giving him a brief stint as the ACC’s all-time leading scorer.  Love him or hate him, simply put, Redick was the most dangerous offensive player in the NCAA for four years running.  Despite playing with highly touted big men like Shelden Williams and Shavlik Randolph, Redick was the focus of the offense to the point of saturation.  When anyone thought Duke, they thought JJ Redick.

As a result, the pool of post players at Duke dried up.  Duke remained a fairly tall team, being able to successfully recruit players like Josh McRoberts and Kyle Singler, but the post players coming to Duke were all face-up players with a tendency to float out to the perimeter like more “classic” Duke players such as Danny Ferry and Christian Laettner.   Why?  Because the coaches recruiting against Coach K were able to point to the utilization of Duke’s bigs in the manner that McGary pointed out … setting screens, getting rebounds, and playing defense.  If Duke loses Tony Parker as well, it will likely be because of the perception that Duke is not the place for big men.