My guess would be “no” unless we got a rocket ship one and done in this years freshman class or next.
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Chet Holmgren, Jaden Hardy, Diabate and Houstan. 
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I can see Caris making it, even on the Nets. The contingency would be whether they become an elite team. He can easily be a stud 3rd option, provided options 1 & 2 share the ball. He could also get there if Brooklyn sends Kyrie somewhere else.
I could also see a slim shot for Duncan.
5 year window…Caris is a lock!
@umhoops curious what you make of this Dylan. Seems a little hindsite influenced, I don’t think Duncan was as obviously league bound as this guys makes him out to be. That being said, I do remember those teams dying for offense, and I wonder what could have been if John would have drawn up more for Duncan. Can’t make the kid shoot if he isn’t going to shoot but still.
First thought, guy thinks he’s way smarter than he is.
Second, I laughed out loud at the idea that something happening that made Duncan question his NBA future because his 3-point shooting percentage dropped 6%.
It’s definitely true that Michigan didn’t run a ton of off ball stuff (and is something Duncan does a lot now) for Duncan. That’s really just because of how Beilein’s offense works. Guy is describing Beilein’s chin series as a novelty when it is basically Beilein’s entire being.
I think it’s more just a mental thing for Duncan. And Beilein definitely wanted him to shoot, but there were definitely times where his confidence dipped.
The DHO stuff is really just next level and works extremely well. The idea that he could have done that in college… I just don’t know that he had that, or at least the confidence to do that.
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Yeah, his tone and style are definitely grating.
The video IMO opinion should have asserted that there were small clues but no reason to believe that Duncan would be able to work hard and improve for two years in the system and pick up the DHO stuff, shooting off the bounce, and the improved confidence that make him what he is now.(that and his improved athleticism and defense-improved enough to allow him to stay on the floor in the NBA) Instead it seemed like the guy made the claim that Dunc was misused at Michigan and because of that was overlooked. False equivalence of two years of league contract and support Duncan with college 6th man Duncan.
Do you think Beilein’s system had a weakness for overlooking a specific player’s potential because of it’s rigidity?
The rigidity of the system was definitely an issue at the beginning when the overall level of talent was much lower. Guys like Manny Harris or Deshawn Simms were really shoehorned into the system because that’s what worked for everyone else. But once the talent increased (circa 2012) it seemed to me at least that he let them play more free. I think the issue with Duncan was that Beilein saw him more as a role player (stand in the corner to stretch the floor, knock down shots when the ball gets to you) instead of a go-to guy like a Stauskas or Levert. Hard to argue he was entirely wrong there.
Maybe, but I still think this is more an argument of what Duncan was capable of then and what he is capable of now.
I also think Beilein recruited to his system as well as about anyone. So the “system” made a lot of players too.
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When it comes to Duncan being “overlooked” by the NBA, maybe I’m wrong here, but I don’t think Duncan was gonna be drafted no matter what sets we had run for him at Michigan.
There have been a ton of articles written all this year about how unique Duncan is as a player. I could probably link like 15 articles on the topic, and there are probably better ones than this, but this article from March (pre-pandemic) from the Heat SB Nation site has the two key points in it.
In the article they say that:
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88% of Duncan’s attempted shots are 3’s, the highest rate in NBA history.
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4 of the top 7 3 point rate seasons in NBA history are Heat players under Spoelstra.
Coming out of college Duncan was known for one thing, elite shooting. And in the NBA Duncan is known for one thing, elite shooting. Obviously Duncan has made some strides in other areas, especially since the 2nd half of his senior year becoming a more competent defender. But 95% of his value (if not more) comes from his elite shooting.
The ways in which Duncan gets his shots are more varied now in the NBA than they were in college, and that’s helped him be so efficient. But the main reason NBA didn’t really look at him was that he’s a one trick pony, with the one trick being shooting. And even with the rise of the 3 pointer over the last 5-10 years, no team had ever committed to having a literal “Just A Shooter” be such an integral part to the offense. The fact that 4 of the top 7 3 point rate seasons in NBA history come from one team under one coach really drives that home, and also makes sense as to why Duncan ended up in Miami.
I don’t really think there’s anything realistic Michigan could have done to make Duncan more appealing to the NBA. No one minus the Heat wanted Duncan because no one minus the Heat valued JAS’s to this level, even in the ERA of 3 point shooting. No one had ever let a JAS be JAS with such a high volume of shots as well. Part of that could be because there aren’t many players like Duncan out there so it hadn’t really been attempted yet, but a lot of it is probably teams didn’t think that one skill alone was valuable enough. Luckily for Duncan the Heat/Spoelstra were here to take a chance and let him prove people wrong.
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He wasn’t wrong.
Robinson’s ability to be a top notch NBA role player isn’t some sign he could have been a college star - that’s just not his game. It’s hard to be a star if you can’t dribble (which he still basically doesn’t do).
Furthermore, there is no shortage of elite college three point shooters (Jon Deibler) who fail to make the NBA so Duncan obviously has some sort of special sauce beyond just being a good shooter (size, probably).
Finally, if you read any of the now dozens of articles written since the start of this past NBA season (and even when he got signed to a two way), everyone, Duncan himself included, will say the biggest thing was the Heat staff’s insistence on:
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Convincing him he’s a great shooter that needs to take these difficult shots and they will support him doing it
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Getting his defense to a “playable in the NBA” level
And yeah - the idea that the Beilein system held back Robinson when the larger Beilein narrative as it pertains to the NBA is “is this guy an actual NBA prospect or is Beilein just making him look like one?”
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In some ways, that makes what he has accomplished even more impressive. I don’t follow the NBA all that closely, but no one else comes to mind in the category of players who went from being critical role players in college to critical role players in the league. Usually it is college stars adapting to more limited roles in the NBA. Credit to Duncan for making that jump and credit to the Heat scouts/coaching staff for realizing he had a skillset that fit so well with their system.
I feel like it’s possible someone like Matt Painter could have gotten more out of Duncan on offense but hard to knock Beilein for it. Especially since Duncan himself will admit he had struggled with confidence a lot and that wasn’t due to Beilein screaming at him
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Oh I’m not arguing he was maximized - again, Jon Diebler was probably a better college player. I’m just noting that he was almost always going to be a complementary player (sorry to keep mentioning Diebler, but he really scarred me).
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One thing I would add is the purpose of the G-League is to develop players. It’s not to win games. So a coach could focus on getting Duncan ready to contribute to the Heat.
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I also think it’s worth noting that this season, Duncan shot a higher percentage on more attempts, on harder attempts, from a deeper line than he did in his college career.
He’s just a much better shooter than he was.
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For sure. Duncan was a very good shooter in college. He was not good enough to think he was capable of what he did this past season.
He wasn’t always on at the right time in the season also. I remember some pretty big cold patches. FWIW, his conference three point numbers were
Sophomore: 35.2%
Junior: 45.1%
Senior: 37.5%
So obviously great during his junior year, but also not really “needs to be eating up a much bigger chunk of our possessions” level for the other two years.
I think I pointed this out back during the summer but it cherry-picking conference numbers just creates a big sample size issue. No one is pointing out that Robinson shot 39% from three in January this year, for example, although that’s a sample size that is close.
He shot 42% from 3-point range on 555 career attempts. He was definitely an elite college shooter.
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College basketball inherently has a sample size issue. Nothing ever matters. QED.