Monday Morning Thoughts #3
The outpouring of support received from coaches since the first edition 2 weeks ago has been phenomenal. Keep reaching out! I love to connect and get your thoughts!
As always, I will preface these by saying this is NOT gospel. It’s not right or wrong, this is just designed as an exercise to continually free flow some of my thoughts from the week and hopefully get yourself thinking as well. I DO NOT have all answers, but I do have a lot of ideas, thoughts, & questions.
Playing with multiple trigger men on the court
This is an interesting one & one that I have became more fond of since deep diving into the Golden State Warriors for the past couple weeks.
I’m sure everyone is familiar with the concept of a “trigger” man. These are usually larger players (mainly bigs) that have some type of higher basketball IQ, passing acumen, & occasionally scoring ability. These guys are the quarterbacks of the offense. They are involved in a majority of the actions whether that is as a passer, screener, cutter, or scorer.
Looking at the Warriors this player would be Draymond Green. Facilitating and playing out of constant short rolls. However, I would also like to take a look at the role that Kevon Looney plays and make the argument that he would qualify as a trigger man as well.
Not because he has the ball on every possession or because he averages a large number of assists, but offensively Looney is trying to create open looks for his teammates as a screener whether that on the ball, off the ball, or in the handoff game. While seldomly looking for his own.
By having Draymond and Kevon as the two trigger men, this gives the GSW free flowing, unpredictable motion offense a layer of structure to it with roles that are so clearly defined.
Now not everyone is operating with the same 3 players around them, but the question becomes how can we define and layout guidelines based on our personnel to put our best offensive players in positions to succeed while keeping the offensive possession flowing with actions and ball movement.
Why do we spend so much time on giving an advantage?
I think this is a pretty common and popular question in basketball circles right now.
Create, Find, Keep or whatever terminology we like to utilize. Advantage basketball is typically laid out as a 3 step process in order to obtain a high value shot.
When a look at why most offensive positions stagnate and result in lower quality shots it usually stems from a lack of creating an advantage. Second would be keeping, but mainly creating.
I do believe in the importance of building up and that usually starts with being given an advantage, but you have to continue to layer and move on.
This beginning with my own personal philosophy that when playing in the halfcourt, advantages are created with your actions. They are not created 1v1 against a set defense.
I will likely spend more time on this in a deeper dive soon.
How can we get creative in attacking coverages with automatics?
My favorite offensive automatic I saw last year in order to attack a coverage came from Penn State vs Switches specifically in middle ball screen scenarios.
Where after the switch occurred they would ghost their shooter to the ball handler and cut 1 pass away from where the ghost screener would be popping.
You can do this off a boomerang pass or off a live dribble, personal preference would be boomerang pass.
Now I spoke about automatics earlier in one these editions and this is what I’m talking about. This is a simple, but HIGH level automatic. Much different than just your generic cutting or spacing rules.
Key thing to think about when developing automatics. “Where is the ball at on the floor” “Where are my other 4 players on the court” “How can we leverage this scenario to take advantage of one of our offensive players with gravity?” “Can we put the defensive personnel in an uncomfortable situation to defend?”
Is it necessary to start your offense with a stagnant P&R?
This goes back to mainly my personal preference again. For those of you that do not know, I am not a fan of the traditional drag screen. I think you can get creative with it manipulating angles, manipulating your floor balance for it to be more effective early in the possession, but as a transition/early offense I do believe there are much better alternatives to start your possession.
Like everything in the game of basketball, it is situational. If you know you’re going to see an aggressive coverage, it’s probably a good idea to drag in the middle third of the floor. If you know you are going to see a switch it’s not a bad idea to drag on the outer third of the floor.
However, I do think sometimes we limit our options early in the possession by setting drags on the outer third. With fast paced basketball at a premium, your goal should be to be as efficient as you can early in the clock and get the defense rotating as early as you can in the clock.
If you’d like to connect, you can reach me at either of the following below. Also if you enjoy my work and these newsletters as well as the weekly X’s & O’s Videos, please spread the word!
Cell: 330-787-1146
Email: connor.harr@westliberty.edu