Monday Morning Thoughts
Apologies for the Delay on this One. Had some great feedback on last week's edition and will be continuing.
Again I would like to start this with the caveat, this is not gospel. I am simply giving coaches things to think about and chew on. I have very few if any answers, I just like to make people think. Yes, my opinions & beliefs are tied into this does not make them right or wrong. There’s a million ways to do something in this game. Few are wrong.
Are your concepts too Patterned?
“Concepts” is the sexy word in basketball now. Has been for a few years, wish I had a dollar for every time I heard it.
What is the value of playing within concepts? My answer one word answer to that question would be unpredictability. An ability to attack defensive coverages and develop that mindset that the “defense will always be wrong”. Another layer to that unpredictability is for scouting purposes as well.
Oftentimes when I watch teams I do feel like the concepts are starting to get a little too redundant and patterned where we are taking away that level of unpredictability.
If you are fully embracing concepts, to a degree you are embracing freedom. If you are embracing freedom, you are trying to make the variance of the game your competitive advantage.
Reminder that no matter how much we try to dictate and direct, basketball is a game with a significant amount of variance.
Why Do We Rim Run?
This is one of my favorites. Always gets the older guys fired up, but I think it is a very fair question that you should be asking yourself.
Obviously we are not steering our offense away from easy layups, if you can get ahead of the defense by all means rim run.
What about in other scenarios where your rim runner just comes crashing into the paint versus a set defense. Does it make sense? Is it necessary?
With transition D putting a premium on protecting the paint especially early in the possession. You see teams design their transition D with their Big sprinting directly into the paint.
Some might say “Well my 5 cannot shoot so he has to rim run” - that might not be the case using your 5 as a screener or hunting action within passes and chases or DHO’s, or gets could be very valuable within your early offense. I did a breakdown on this with the OKC Thunder which I will link below. However, you see this in the NBA all time (Bam, Draymond, Sabonis) for a few examples.
If your 5 man can shoot you are really pigeonholing yourself. We put a premium on closeouts and rotations. I always say, if we can get the opposing teams big in a long closeout this one of the better advantages and the best closeout scenario we can obtain within offense.
Do we still put too much of an emphasis on positions?
I am so thankful that we have moved away from the traditional PG, SG, SF & so on. I’ve never thought it made sense with the evolution of basketball in todays game.
However, I do feel like we still utilize traditional numbers which I definitely understand from a teaching and introduction perspective do not get me wrong. I can even see the argument for utilizing it from a defensive perspective, but looking at it from the offensive side of the ball I still do not quite understand it.
When I say this, it either comes with one extreme or another. Either it’s incredibly well liked or incredibly disliked. Again I can see the argument depending on your play style.
However if we are playing with freedom at a fast pace I still struggle to understand. I look at 3 positions personally: Guard, Wing, Big.
This might be a whole piece for a different day where I lay my beliefs out.
Inverting Actions
This comes from the Slappin Glass Podcast with Zach Guthrie (Washington Wizards Assistant) where they talked about offensive trends and where things are headed and he mentioned inverting actions and I’ve been kind of hooked on it ever since.
It makes sense. Skill at every position continues to increase at an all time high. There’s also a ton of value in it with the modern actions that we run today.
Examples: Turning a Regular DHO into an inverted Ball Screen, Twirling a Traditional Downscreen. Utilizing Trailing Flare Screens for Stretch Bigs instead of Early Wide Pindowns. The list goes on and on but just to name a few.
It allows you to put the defense and defensive personnel in unfamiliar scenarios
Tried to make this one a little shorter winded. If you’d like to reach out, connect, or discuss any of these topics please feel free to shoot me a message. My contact info will be below.
Cell: 330-787-1146
Email: connor.harr@westliberty.edu