Drafting with Context: Mike Krzyzewski

Dec 29, 2014; Durham, NC, USA; Duke Blue Devils assistant coach Nate James, associate head coach Jeff Capel, head coach Mike Krzyzewski and assistant coach Jon Scheyer watch their team against the Toledo Rockets in their game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Dolejs-USA TODAY Sports

[If you did not read the first installment in this series, I recommend you do so now (LINK).  Otherwise, you may feel like you are being tossed into the middle of something here.]

Mike Krzyzewski:

Teams: Duke

Mentors: Bob Knight

Mentees: Quin Snyder, Mike Brey, Johnny Dawkins, Chris Collins, Tommy Amaker, Bobby Hurley, Mike Dement, Jeff Capel III, Neil Dougherty, David Henderson, Chuck Swenson

Features of his system:

3-out 2-in motion offense. Emphasis on posting a dominant big supported by multiple outside shooters.

Pressure half-court defense. Emphasis on pressuring ball and help-side blocking.

Prospects of note:

Jahlil Okafor, C; Justise Winslow, SF; Tyus Jones, PG; Rasheed Sulaimon, PG/SG

Patterns:

Two-point attempts –

One nice thing about Coach K. is that he has sent so many players to the NBA that we get some very believable patterns. Looking at the translation of his players’ two-point shot attempts, Krzyzewskian prospects have a very steep translation slope. Guys who are given a lot of looks inside the arc under Coach K. should be expected to see an even higher volume of attempts in the NBA.  Conversely, if you cannot create shots inside at Duke you are particularly unlikely to do so in the NBA.

Slicing this a bit smaller, it looks like star small-forwards in particular have their inside volume depressed by Duke’s system. This may be interpreted as good news for Justise Winslow’s prospects.

Rebounds —

One of the take home messages from my last post was that rebounding is remarkably consistent between college and the pros. This definitely holds on average, but there are still some interesting patterns when you look the level of individual coaches. Go back and look at the John Calipari post and you will see that all of his past player’s fit right on the expected line. This is not the case with Coach K.

Perimeter players in Krzyzewski’s system fall on or even a bit below the projection line, but all of his post prospects went on to rebound at a higher rate in the pros than their NCAA rate predicts (“all” assumes we define Kelly as something other than a post player). This is great news for Jahlil Okafor since it indicates that his already impressive rebounding may be even better than he has shown at Duke.

Steals –

Consistent with Krzyzewski’s reputation for aggressively attacking the ball on the perimeter, Duke tends to inflate guards’ ball-thieving prowess. The two exceptions to this rule, Irving and Williams, may simply be a function of small-sample, Irving in college and Williams (tragically) in the pros.

Passing –

Not a hard-and-fast rule, but a number of Dukie bigmen developed into surprisingly adept passers in the NBA. Brand, Boozer, Laettner, and Kelly, all became excellent NBA passers despite not doing as much distributing in college. Okafor’s prospects look better if we can assume a similar transition.

More?

That is all I have for this installment. Please, take a look at Krzyzewski with this correlation tool and let me know if you find anything else I should comment on. I will be back sometime soon with a post looking at one of the other top college coaches.