Not necessarily disagreeing, but why would we "lose Nika"? I don't think there's a player who loves her team more than Nika. Paige might be equal, but Nika BLEEDS Husky blue.
As for shooting, the point others, including Geno, seem to be making is that if she won't take a 3 and/or drive into the teeth of the defense to force rotations and mismatches and/or force someone to come out and guard her, then our offense is basically 4 on 5 and that almost never works out well.
I haven't read anyone on here advocating for "putting up a lot of shots", and she only averaged 3.5 last season. One last thing to add - can't simply rely on 2 players shooting the ball. Shots attempted per game last season:
- 12.2 Christyn
- 11.4 Paige
- 10.3 Evina
- 9.3 Azzi
- 8.6 Caroline
- 6.5 Aaliyah
- 6.0 Olivia
- 5.9 Dorka
- 3.5 Nika
Granted on a team with so much scoring prowess, Nika was not needed to shoot and score, but being more aggressive, IMHO, would open up the court a bit more for the offense to flow forcing defenders to pay more attention to her. It makes the rest of the team better and more open (in theory).
If nothing else she needs to shoot when wide open. I used to go out of my mind when Christyn would have one of those games where she'd jack up 7+ 3-point attempts. I was like "there's as reason no one guards you out there Christyn. JUST STOP with the 3's".
Nika on the other hand, was a much better shooter, especially after getting past her early season slump. When she's wide open, she either needs to shoot, or take the ball to the hoop. Good things are likely to happen. All IMHO of course.