I respect and appreciate CMW being loyal to his starters (maybe to a fault), however, I am yet to understand why we continue the Kopp experiment as a starter. I am sure he is a great young man and is a good basketball player, but maybe not a starter on a great team. Kopp seems to be on the floor for two reasons: First, for his shooting and steadiness with the ball. Second, would be his effort and understanding of defense. That makes some sense, except for that on both ends of the floor, his knowledge and effort cannot overcome his physical shortcomings. On offense, if you watch most games, Kopp makes most of his threes when TJD or others push the ball on a dribble drive or primary break and hit him in the corner or wing for a three. In a set, his shot and quickness to rise and shoot, are too slow. Kopp is not hitting threes unless he is very wide open. His percentage is high, but his attempts are too low for how many minutes he plays and based on his physical limitations, he will not get many more attempts. This limits your offensive options when your shooter cannot get his own shot, nor can he pull up over a defender. The second part of the equation is where I feel Kopp struggles the most -- his defense against the straight-line drive. On almost every possession where Kopp is at the top of the key or at the FT line defending the ball, he gets beat early on the dribble drive. That causes the entire defense to rotate and be out of position. It is very difficult to guard the ball one-on-one anywhere on the floor but getting beat on the first step each time is killing our team defense. Mix that with our inability to stay in a recoverable position on ball rotation on the three-point shooter (again, this could all start off the breakdown on dribble-drive). I think Kopp adds valuable minutes to this team, but maybe not as a starter. We are banged up, so why not try to mix it up. Would love to see this lineup tonight: TJD, JHS, Bates, Galloway, and Gunn. Sub order depends on fouls, but next up would be: Reneau, Banks, Kopp, Duncomb, then Geronimo, and Leal. I think all these players and coaches can be very good, especially if we get Thompson and Johnson back – this was huge hit. Not many teams survive losing two starters, but this team could – maybe just make some adjustments. Also, we seem to still be stuck in the Archie era of stopping the scoring when we get a lead. Play the old game of first team to 90 wins and go score or try to score early and often in the shot clock. When the right guys have an open shot, the offensive play should end right then with a shot. We need to wait no later than 13 seconds on the shot clock to start any play, regardless of score. Waiting until 7 seconds is too late with 2 minutes left on the clock – we have seen 5 years of bad shots from this methodology.
