Lamont Paris talks value of spreading shots and rotating players early in season
In an ideal world, Lamont Paris would love to play all his players every game. But that’s just not realistic.
On a night like Monday, though, he was able to make that happen. 13 players saw time on the floor for South Carolina in an 82-53 win over USC Upstate to open the season.
“We have a lot of guys. There’s not a lot of separation with some guys and that can go either way,” Paris said. “For us right now, it’s been a good thing in that if someone’s not playing well or effective, we put someone else in and they feel comfortable going into the game and executing what we want to execute.”
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Of the 13 guys who played, 10 were able to take multiple shots. Eight players made more than two baskets in the game.
Being able to spread the shots has been something Paris has talked about doing this year. And they did so in strong fashion on Monday.
Even the guys like Eli Sparkman and Danny Grajzl, who might not play a ton, saw a few minutes each. Sparkman played eight minutes and took one shot and missed. But he made two free throws, which sent the remaining crowd into a frenzy near the tail end of the night.
“If you do good things at practice, you’ll be rewarded in the game,” Paris said. “Look at Eli as a perfect example for us. He goes out there and the crowd loves it because he’s a little, small guy. But he’s a good basketball player. If he looked physically like some other guys in this league, I’m telling you, you’ll think I’m crazy, but he would be a dude. He’s a smart basketball player, he knows where to be positionally defensively. He’s reliable, he knows terminology, he knows where to be.”
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But as the season moves along, Paris knows not every game is going to be a 29-point route. The games are only going to get tougher, which means certain players will see more minutes than others.
“Honestly, as we move forward, we’ll settle into a couple things from a role stand point, from a minutes stand point, rotations and substitutions. That’s part of what the early season is,” Paris said. “But I do anticipate us having a lot of guys going in and out of the game at some point or another just because it’s basketball.
“You don’t always have your best stuff every day. And that’s not due to a lack of effort, it’s not due to a lack of practice. Every now and then, you have a game where you don’t have your best stuff. And to be able to throw guys in, even for short spurts, to be able to carry the torch until somebody gets back and gets back on that second turn, maybe they start playing a little bit better.”
