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Message: [QUOTE="oldhusky, post: 4190042, member: 9844"] There is pretty universal agreement that for this team to excel Azzi needs to play more and shoot more. Caroline as you say "out of necessity" was empowered to take many of the shots. That was somewhat because in Paige's absence others were not stepping up. Caroline has been around 30% from three, looking to get it up with even the slightest bit of daylight. She has probably rushed a few, but her background and three point contests suggest she is likely to be a 40% 3pt shooter when Azzi and Paige start drawing the defenses. So while Azzi may need to be the first or second best player while Paige is out, Caroline needs to be right behind her and probably IMO ahead of Christyn. A lineup with Nika, Christyn and Evina had no "great" 3pt shooters and spacing and interior play suffered greatly. Caroline mixed with two of those gives us one but only one, still a relative team weakness. Caroline with Azzi gives us two at a time, and the probable starting lineup next year, Paige, Azzi and Caroline gives us three. The big question is if that should be the starting lineup by the end of this year. Caroline has effectively put Evina on the bench, once she got her opportunity to prove she belongs in the starting lineup. Azzi hasn't earned anything like that yet, but will get significant opportunities over the next few games to make her case. Of course the bar for her is high, because she would not need to just match Christyn, but probably clearly be playing better to get a starting position. We are all anxious to get Paige back, but I think we should also remember that we didn't play very well before Paige got injured, and that was playing with two so so 3pt threats in Christyn and Evina. Regardless of who starts with Paige and Azzi soon being available with Caroline, we can frequently have at least two great long range threats in the game most of the time, and the option of three part of the time. I hope all of our bigs will flourish inside when that happens. [/QUOTE]

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