Running, passing and shooting are three of the most important skills needed to run the point guard position in a basketball offense.
Unfortunately for Duke women’s basketball, there are no healthy starters who can do all three of those things at a high level. Haley Gorecki is an elite driver and shooter, but a merely capable passer. Miela Goodchild is one of the best shooters in the country and has shown flashes of high-level passing, but her ability to create her own shot is still lacking. Leaonna Odom already plays point forward, but she doesn’t have the ability to shoot from the key to create spacing in the defense.
Some may argue that being able to make threes is overrated when it comes to being a good point guard. They might even argue that the idea of shooting them at all is irrelevant. While these people would love the Odom-led offense, because spacing matters, they would also find their team deprived of open threes and one-on-ones in the post. Especially in today's game, where everyone at every position is more athletic than they were just ten years ago, you need to spread a defense thin, or every shot will be contested and double-teams will easily be executed by defenses.
Odom's lack of outside shooting makes beating her defender on the floor with her elite athleticism harder to do, as defenses can sit back and clog her lanes and force the play to start with a pass to Goodchild or Gorecki, as so many possessions quite predictably did last year.
Odom’s skills—getting buckets or drawing fouls at will from the post—compare favorably with Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers. While those skills make both of them excellent with the ball in a fast break, you would never want either running your halfcourt offense.
The Blue Devils have other options, though. Remember what I said about Gorecki and Goodchild’s passing?
One way to create space without having a true point guard and multiple elite shooters (Duke lacks only the former) is to force the defense out of its positions. Different set plays can achieve this, but so can a fast-paced offense. A plethora of passes, cuts and screens, both on and off-ball, will create space in the defense, opening up lanes for Gorecki, Goodchild, Odom and the talented bigs, Onome Akinbode-James and Jade Williams. All five are immensely talented shooters. There should be no universe in which this collection of talent scores less than 70 points per game.
So the question is: how do you open up the court for them? How do you allow them each to get their opportunities to thrive?
The answer: you spread the defense thin. Few teams have enough talent to stop all five players. Duke should force teams to pick their poison and put itself in a position where it can find mismatches. The Blue Devils need to put the ball in as many hands as possible, to take advantage of everyone’s ability to strain a defense and to put everyone in the position in which they can best succeed.
Continuing to run Odom at Point will clog up lanes and slow down the high-powered Blue Devil offense. Running a point-by-committee, with Gorecki, Goodchild and Odom all moving around the court and passing the ball around, will be the best option for Duke.
Editor's note: This is a part of our point/counterpoint series of who should run point guard for the Blue Devils this year. Read Max Rego's point arguing for putting Leaonna Odom at the point here and the rest of our Duke women's basketball here.
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