Can John Calipari become an offensive minded coach

Can Sahvir Wheeler be both a play starter and solid defender at 5-9? (Vicky Graff Photo)

It’s just about that time of year. Even though most Kentucky fans are still keeping their eyes focused on the football Cats, the basketball Cats are also cranking up. The first UK exhibition game is right around the corner — that corner being around the 29th of October against Kentucky Wesleyan.

One thing that is interesting about this year’s team is that the players seem to be more of an offensive finesse team than most of John Calipari’s previous teams.

Here’s what I mean. This team should be driven by guard play. Based on the limited offensive firepower of the players that will be filling the post — 6-9, 255-pound junior Oscar Tshiebwe and 6-9, 225-pound sophomore Lance Ware — it doesn’t seem possible that UK will play any kind of post-up offense. It seems much more likely that the Wildcats will be very perimeter-oriented with the six scholarship guards that are on the roster.

Those players can pretty much be broken up into Calipari’s suggested buckets of “play starters” and “play finishers.” It looks like UK will have two of each type with two other guards — true freshman TyTy Washington and super senior Kellan Grady — being combo players.

That would make junior Savhir Wheeler and super senior Davion Mintz, at 5-9 and 6-3respectively, mostly “play starters.” They are effective with the ball in their hands, can get past a defender to either finish inside or pass the ball off to a teammate to finish and they both are good floor generals. They can score if they have to but also make everyone else better with their experience and passing ability. They are “play starters.”

On the other hand, junior CJ Frederick and sophomore Dontaie Allen would appear to both be “play finishers.” At 6-6 with an incredibly long wingspan, Allen is an excellent spot-up shooter and could eventually have the ability to take the ball to the basket and use his body to score whereas Frederick has shown that he could be one of the best 3-point shooters in the SEC. Allen has already proven to also be a high percentage 3-point shooter and with some additional work and experience Allen’s size could allow him to be a “pick and pop” candidate with Wheeler or Mintz.

That leaves combo guards Grady and Washington. Both players can take the ball to the basket off the fast break and Washington appears to be an excellent three-point shooter as he won the Iverson Classic three-point shooting contest back in May. Grady was a career 37 percent 3-point shooter during his days at Davidson.

That means Calipari can mix and match his guards depending on which one has the hot hand on any particular night. Teams that can shoot a high percentage from the floor and also take the ball to the basket are usually tough outs at tournament time. If the Cats can get steady offensive production from the likes of Keion Brooks, Jacob Toppin, Bryce Hopkins, and Daimion Collins in the paint area, then the offense should be in good shape once all the kinks of integrating new players into the system have been worked out.

So my biggest concern this season won’t be offensive-related. My concern is can a defensive-minded coach like John Calipari — who only plays man-to-man defense — be able to get some of his guards who are either shorter in stature or not the quickest players on the floor to play credible enough defense to allow them to stay on the floor for their offensive skills?

Particularly Allen and Frederick for their lack of quickness and Wheeler for his shorter stature could really put a crimp in Kentucky’s ability to stop teams from taking the ball to the basket. Without a true rim protector on defense and two interior players that seem to be foul prone (Tshiebwe averaged 22 minutes per game and three fouls per game at West Virginia while Ware averaged 12 minutes per game and two fouls per game) Kentucky could find itself in a position where they have to outscore the other team on three-point shots in order to win the game.

Now there is nothing that says a player that doesn’t have great quickness or tall stature can’t be a good defensive player but it takes a lot more work and there is less margin for error on every play.

Overall it will be interesting to see if Calipari can coach against his nature and ride the coattails of what should be a pretty good offensive team instead of using long, lean athletic players to play lockdown defense and hope they can score enough points to win the game — something UK fans have seen a lot of in the past.

If this team can live up to the offensive hype and play average or better defense this season Calipari should be able to hang on to his swaggy attitude but if offensive players struggle to play defense and it affects their offensive game negatively fans may see the worst of both — offense and defense — at least in the early part of the season.

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing if Calipari can make the same transition in basketball that Nick Saban had to make with Alabama Football in changing from a defensive machine to an offensive one. It seemed to help rejuvenate the Crimson Tide, maybe it will do the same for Calipari’s Cats.