12/21/24
February 13, 2008
Fast and the Furious: In a sport historically slow to adapt to any but the slightest change, basketball programs at every level from high school to the NBA are embracing a whole new way of playing the game. Stranger yet, the architect of this change has never coached above Division ll.
posted by irunfromclones to basketball at 05:20 PM - 11 comments
And so, using a pepper shaker as the basket, white sugar packets as offensive players and pink Sweet'n Low packets as defenders... If you've ever coached before, this speaks to you...
posted by smithers at 11:07 PM on February 13, 2008
Wow, this looks almost like total football, pioneered by the Dutch (and Ajax) teams in the 70s, I believe. This is going to make me watch March Madness with great interest. Heck, this is going to make me watch March Madness.
posted by worldcup2002 at 11:25 PM on February 13, 2008
Do be fair, Memphis is good this year because their players are ridiculously talented. Any team with a point guard like Derrick Rose is going to be ranked, and his supporting cast is fabulous, regardless of the offense. All of these various offensive schemes were drawn up for undermanned or undersized teams in order to even the competition. Princeton, the offense I am most familiar with, relies on tons of patience in order to wear down your opponents concentration on defense and to limit the number of possetions to make sure they can't run away from you. There a handful of teams that use a version of it now, but with varying degrees of success. Georgetown, a team with first class atheletes and size used it to get to last year's Final 4, while coaches like Belien at WVU (now at Michigan), Sendek at NC St. (now ASU), and Stallings at Vanderbilt have also been able to adapt the offense to more talented teams. On the other hand, you have teams like Northwestern, who couldn't win a game in the Big 10 if the refs were bought off, and Belein's current team, Michigan, who are also just plainly hiddeous. Point is, with all of these schemes, if you don't have top talent, you are unlikely to be all that good, no matter what system you come up with. Even at Princeton, while Carril was an innovator, the talent he brought was consistently better than that of any other Ivy League school. Coach Cal has done a solid job at Memphis and UMass, but I would say his biggest acheivement has been recruiting, not some kind of offensive revolution. With out Marcus Camby, his UMass teams would have been pedestrian, and without quick, top rated guards like Rose and CDR, and highly talented low post players like Dozier and Dorsey, AASAA would not likely make Memphis better than anyone else.
posted by Chargdres at 08:56 AM on February 14, 2008
Interesting read. Its nice to see basketball offensive philosophies move back towards actual basketball skills (Driving and Shooting) and away from the sort of grind it out "thug-ball" style that has been pretty pervasive (I became very familiar with it during Huggins' years at Cincinnati). It strikes me as similar (not just because it was mentioned in the article) to the style of ball international teams have been using to kick our asses in the Olympics and the World Championships lately.
posted by srw12 at 10:57 AM on February 14, 2008
If you've ever coached before, this speaks to you... Or played, or refereed, or loved the game ...
posted by Spitztengle at 11:16 AM on February 14, 2008
DDM is definitely a fun style to watch. I thought for sure the article would talk about the Warriors. Monta Ellis is a prime example. He put up about 40 points against the Suns last night by mostly just taking the ball to the rim every time he touched it.
posted by chamo at 12:34 PM on February 14, 2008
or refereed Hey Spitz, I only included a referee if there was a slice of lemon or a bottle of vinegar on the table. ;)
posted by smithers at 12:56 PM on February 14, 2008
Great read, what an interesting story...
posted by sfts2 at 02:40 PM on February 14, 2008
Isaiah Thomas, when asked why he had played Eddy Curry for only 9:18 vs the Celtics last night, replied that it was the Celtics offense that dictated it. He also said that as the game becomes more open, the big men are tending to disappear.
posted by Howard_T at 04:33 PM on February 14, 2008
And so, using a pepper shaker as the basket, white sugar packets as offensive players and pink Sweet'n Low packets as defenders... wouldn't the white sugar packets be on the bench? I kid..I kid...
posted by bdaddy at 09:32 PM on February 14, 2008
There have been some interesting changes in coaching philosophies over recent years, but we are far from a paradigm shift. And this article spells it out pretty clearly. Its not surprising that coaches are willing to let innovators like Walberg bend their ears when it comes to offense. But defense? I'm not shocked by the articles change in tone, but it was pretty jarring to go from reading about the creative, energetic, experimental offense to:
(Emphasis mine) But then again there are a handful of conflicting lines throughout the article:And yet:The subject matter is obviously more complex than I'm making it out to be, but these details jumped out at me. Very interesting read.