I hear you and
@PatrickYates. Either way, I’m just not personally ready to count Ques or the other Duke centers out. Patrick is right, there’s no denying how shocking Bolden’s performance was. But if it was bad for us, imagine how that kid feels. Maybe that was the motivation he needed.
On the plus side, Jav looked like he might be a great fit for what Duke needs next year. I can't speak for others, but I personally am having to shift a lot of my preconceptions, to a wide degree.
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Based on some of my opinions, I felt that Duke would need a certain amount of quality defense and rebounding from the C position. A large part of my thinking was based on my expectations vis a vis Zion. After the Canada trip, I have to admit (and internally adjust my thinking) that he is better than I expected on D and rebounding (and O, but that is somewhat immaterial to my calculus, only not really).
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Given that he looks like a pretty good defender and rebounder at the 4, we don't need as much d and rebounding from the C. Javin can do it. Prior to the Canada trip, I thought Javin would be a great switching defender, but that he'd have real trouble with bigs in the low post while being a subpar rebounder. I'm still worried about bigs in the low post, but less so than before Canada. And he was a pleasant surprise WRT rebounding. If he's able to be successful on the boards, and his effort and hustle make that promising, then he's more than capable of being the C.
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Because, Zion is much better on O than I thought. I thought he be decent outside of attacking the rim (where I thought he'd be great). Instead, he's very good outside of purely attacking the rim (where he's better than I hoped).
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I think Bolden is a better iso scorer than Javin. And he might always be that. And I thought we'd need more O from our C than we probably will. The four frosh, along with AOC and White, can probably score enough points to get us wins this year. Jav will get some garbage buckets, but he'll likely score less per minute than Bolden is likely to achieve. But that isn't as big a deal now compared to my previous thinking. We don't need as much scoring from the C, no matter who that is. Given that, Javin is probably good enough with his D and rebounding. He needs to watch Clint Capella, and look at Clint's recent FA contract, and take inspiration.
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I've been a huge proponent and defender of Bolden for the last 2 years. And most of the summer. The poor play in Canada makes my statements supporting him look stupid, which makes me look stupid. Which I don't like. So I'm probably being harder on him than many, because I'm more disappointed than some other folks here. That said, some others here are too eager to write off Bolden's poor performance. Those Canadian teams weren't very good. They had some decent players, ones that might be rotation guys on decent (but not great) college teams. But almost all those guys were guards and wings. Their bigs were atrocious. That 7+ guy is the only nominal big man that would play a single minute in a power 5 conference (or the better non-P5 mid major teams), and he wouldn't be a featured player. Somewhere in the 10-15 MPG, best case scenario. Regardless of offense, Bolden should have owned the paint on D and the boards. His failure to do so might not be as bad as I think, but it is worse than a lot of others think.
Don't worry about the O. RJ, Zion, Cam, AOC, Tre, and White, probably in that order, will generate enough offence for Duke to win every game we play this year. So long as the man Defense isn't as bad as its been the last few seasons. Bolden could help with that. He should, at any rate. Jav will probably be enough, but if MB cannot execute on D and rebound pretty well, then Duke's margin of error becomes uncomfortably tight.