Duke has already been ranked the No. 1 team for 2016-17 in the coaches' poll, and it is exceedingly likely that the Blue Devils will be similarly honored by the nation's basketball writers when the AP poll is released next week. For the consensus top team in Division I, however, Mike Krzyzewski's group is certainly making news for all the wrong reasons in the preseason.
First, freshman Harry Giles underwent an arthroscopic procedure on his left knee at the beginning of October. Then, on Tuesday, freshman Jayson Tatum sprained his foot during a workout.
The good news for Blue Devil fans is that the sprain is reported to be minor, and Krzyzewski says it's likely that Tatum will be ready for Duke's first regular-season game on Nov. 11. Hearing Coach K speak so definitively on Tatum, though, made his comments on Giles sound all the more noncommittal: "He hasn't played in a while. We have to be very careful about his future."
That sounds pretty serious. So why does it feel like everyone's sort of choosing to look the other way on this one? It was news when Giles chose Duke. Isn't it equally significant if he's not there?
Well, I'll go first. Losing Giles for any appreciable amount of time would be a big deal. Indeed it's a mark of how talented the Blue Devils really are that this needs to be stated at all. But, yes, being deprived of the services of a likely one-and-done lottery pick will have an impact, even if you're the top-ranked team in the country.
Duke's loaded, but no replacement can match Giles in at least one respect
This discussion assumes our preconceptions really are correct, and that a healthy Giles does indeed have the ability to perform at or near the level set by previous dominant one-and-done big men -- Jahlil Okafor, DeMarcus Cousins, or even, yes, Anthony Davis. Now, can Duke withstand the loss of that kind of player?
Define "withstand." It's often said that Krzyzewski's fortunate to have other players to turn to while Giles recuperates. After all, Amile Jefferson is a 6-foot-9 senior who logged almost as many minutes as Matt Jones (and far more than Grayson Allen) on the Blue Devils' 2014-15 national title team. Marques Bolden is a 6-foot-11 freshman who would be starting on just about any other team in the country. Chase Jeter, Javin DeLaurier (heck, Tatum's 6-foot-8 in his own right) -- you name it, Coach K has options.
True enough, but what's unique to Giles is that he holds at least the potential to be a high-usage scorer who's most comfortable and productive in the post. We've seen Duke teams both with that kind of presence in the paint (Okafor in 2014-15, and, somewhat less famously, Mason Plumlee in 2011-12) and without it (last season). It's safe to say Coach K would prefer "with," and opponents would opt for "without."
Mind you, Duke really is loaded with talent on offense (not to mention this is hardly Krzyzewski's first barbecue), so the Blue Devils will certainly score a ton of points in either scenario. Nevertheless, the only thing more terrifying to an opposing coach than multiple perimeter scoring threats is multiple perimeter scoring threats benefiting from the spacing that a voracious post scorer can provide.
Giles can fix what ailed Duke last season (no, not point guard play)
Duke's season in 2015-16 was widely viewed as a disappointment, and the culprits were most commonly said to have been defense and point guard play. As to the Blue Devils' defense, absolutely, the conventional wisdom was spot-on: Duke finished dead last in defensive rebound percentage in ACC play. I trust a deeper Blue Devil frontcourt with or without Giles (see above) will be able to improve upon last season's defensive numbers.
But point guard play? Assume for the sake of discussion that a good point guard will take care of the ball and put himself and/or his teammates in good position to score. If this is correct, decrying a lack of quality point guard play seems curious after a season in which Duke's turnover rate plummeted while the team as a whole made half its 2s and 39 percent of its 3s in ACC play.
There was one facet of the game that limited the Blue Devil offense last season, and it was offensive rebounding. On the way to a national title in 2014-15, Duke rebounded 37 percent of its misses in conference play. That number fell all the way to 29 percent last season.
Giles can help with that, to say the least. As a precocious 17-year-old playing for Team USA at the 2015 FIBA U19 world championships, Giles personally pulled down 17 percent of his team's missed shots. That percentage is instructively close to what Boston College posted as an entire team in ACC play last season. So, yes, the freshman can make a difference.
To be sure, Jefferson's an excellent offensive rebounder in his own right, but the thinking on Giles holds that -- like Okafor before him -- he has the potential to clean the glass while also demanding the ball on the block. It would be fun to find out if that thinking is correct.
Duke is far from doomed without a healthy Giles -- ask 340-odd D-I coaches if they'd trade rosters with Krzyzewski as-is -- but on a team brimming with every other kind of ability, the 6-foot-10 freshman does bring something different to the table. Losing that difference, even for a few games, is no small matter on a one-and-done timetable.