Imo there needs to be an understanding how great Azzi was when she was healthy and very underrated as a freshman. IMO the main problem is that some love one-on-one basketball, and believe college ball is the same as pro ball. It isn't. In pro ball Creighton would never have gone to an E8. / similar to being among near one of the best pro teams.
First off Azzi shot 43% from 3 as a frosh I believe. 43% is terrific. Second, UCONN loses to UCF in her frosh year without her. .
And just as we had an understanding with Paige and her injury took time - there has to be an understanding that Azzi was amazing early. She was nowhere near what she was early. So instead of blindly just being a fan of one-on-one pro ball, I ask some fans to take stock in understanding that this past year early she torched Texas and Duke (coaches known for their Defense). Then matched, if not outplayed, Clark. This was a top four team. And she matched or outplayed a super super player. She did this while missing one season High School. While shed comes back she barely played during COVID. Then she was hurt quite a bit her frosh year. So she is 1 year younger than Calrk and has missed about 2 years+ playing time of hoop vs Clark the past 3 years and yet she matched a prime Clark.
So, despite all this she basically smoked three teams. Two strong Defensive Teams, and matching Clark says it all what she will probably be if healthy. Yes she needs to improve in all facets. But let's not over-exaggerate the negative When healthy she has shown to be an elite shooter/scorer and has scored efficiently in some big games/tough competition. So, if healthy, why such negativity? Especially since she’ll be playing with a super player like Paige and an A/a caliber player like Edwards?
And another thing is – Azzi makes Paige “better” too. As well as Paige making Azzi better.
There are a ton of good points in this post. I will take it a little further regarding the injury issue. In my opinion Azzi has been healthy for only 6 games in her career, namely the first 6 games of last year when she was playing like an All American and against top competition as Hoop Huskee points out. We saw glimpses of potential in her freshmen season, but she wasn't healthy with her foot the whole year. What we saw in her freshmen season was mostly a great spot up jump shooter who rarely drove to the basket, or used the pull-up jumper we know she has.
Then at the beginning of last year we saw the full potential, not just a spot up shooter but a big time scorer as well. After those first six games I remember her PER was over 30, or similar to Paige her freshmen season. For the season she wound up in the low 20's, so if you do the math she probably was around 15, or average post injury to bring her numbers down that much for the season. You can't really judge Azzi's likely impact based on her season statistics in either season unless you assume she will be similarly hampered by injuries this year.
I agree that Paige and Azzi can make each other better, but when you think about it, they haven't yet had an opportunity to play together when both players were healthy at the same time. Azzi was only healthy the first six games of last year when Paige was out, and while Paige was healthy for just the first six games of the previous season, Azzi was not with foot issues the whole year.
Both players have concerns over whether they might be injury prone, and if they can recover 100% to prior form, but the optimistic outlook is we haven't seen what both could do together if healthy, and in the brief periods of the last two years when either was healthy, they were very very good. We also haven't yet seen these two three level scorers together and healthy with a passer like Nika which could potentially make them even more effective. Nika in her record setting season frequently had only one outside shooting threat with her (Lou) but most of the time the other perimeter player was Aubrey.
The combination of two great outside shooters (Paige and Azzi), two great scorers (Paige and Azzi) and two great passers (Paige and Nika) together is potentially very exciting if we can avoid the injury bug.