G.A.M.E.

* Warning persons reading this post should be informed that I'm a dork. Acronyms and silly word games amuse me thus when I design basketball items, these tend to bleed in.

What are we going to run on offense this year? G.A.M.E.

Get A Mismatch Early - Offense

What is it? It is a concept based offense (you can call it motion, read and react, freelance, etc) with a priority on getting us the best chance to score.

How? We will use concepts for breaking out, reading penetration, passing and cutting, and using screens. The purpose behind all of which will be to get someone a mismatch that we can win to score. We will use speed, skill and team play to accomplish this.

When? When do we have a mismatch? Anytime somone has a 1 on 0 or a shooter/scorer has enough of a step that a catch and go will result in an 1 on 0. Mismatches also occur: when a player with the ability to finish inside has position and the advantage, a shooter is closed out on late or with hands down, a defensive breakdown allows us to beat our player off pentration.

Why? I like to keep things simple. Concept based offense allows for the most learning possible, while allowing enough structure and freedom for players skills to develop. It puts the owness on their skills and interpretations not the ability to memorize sets and counters.

Where? Where do we get mismatches. Anywhere we can find them a preferably early in the clock. Before the defense is set and communicating (or even back) is the best time to get a 1 on 0. If the defense is back then as soon as someone can create a 1 second advantage or easy mismatch we will exploit it.

G.A.M.E. Rules

1. Atack all the time. Use eyes, body and ball to attack.

2. The floor is divided into grids (6 in each half). No more then 1 player per grid.

3. Players must constanly be active and forcing movement.

4. Allowed types of movement include: cutting to force a push/pull of players without the ball, exchanging grids via a screen, being pushed or pulled in reaction to a cutter or the ball.

5. The ball ulitmately determines and supercedes all other movement. 

6. Players must pass and then: cut to score, cut to create movement or cut to screen.

7. Players must recognize, use and attempt to score in a mismatch once it is presented.

8. Player must understand that concepts change in phases of the clock.

Phase 1 Concepts - Fast Break

- Get someone to the rim.

-Release players up each sideline.

-Have a ballhandler and pressure release opposite them.

-Get the ball up to an pentration and pass to the rim in the first 4 seconds of the shot clock.

Phase 2 Concepts - Transition

- Players not invovled in rim action should be reading push/pull in reaction to drive or cutting action.

- On a kick out shoot if open and able, or immediately reverse the ball.

- Unless we've shot, reverse the ball until player have all cut through and we can get right into mid clock concepts.

-Total ball reversal and repositioning should have happened by the 8 second mark of the shot clock.

Phase 3 Concepts - Mid Clock

- Mid clock phase is 10 seconds in length.

- Mid clock options: Pass Cut Fill, Pass Cut Screen, React to Pentration

- Once you pass the ball you must cut to catch and score, cut to force movment, cut to screen for a teammate. Which ever action creates the most immediate mismatch.

- Any time they are able to effectively attack the rim the player with the ball must attack forcing players to circle in the direction of their selected hand drive.

- Any time you would cross a teammates grid but they are not pushing through that immediately becomes a screen at the meeting point of the grid.

Phase 4 Concepts - Late Clock

- Late clock is the final 6 seconds of the shot clock.

- Player with the ball must immediately create on penetration or find the player most likely to be able to do so immediately. In the case of the later the player who recieves the pass must attack.

- Attacking player looks to create or kick out for a 1 pass shot.

We may also have a couple of sets or specific calls along with inbounds, late game and inbounding situational stuff. I can't give away all the secrets at once though.

Tryouts and Evaluations

I don't have tryouts.

I used to have tryouts, and sometimes I miss the good old days. You line up a bunch of nervous kids around the middle, detailing your expectations for the season and at tryouts. Then you do some technical drills to test skills, space them out with a lot of high energy conditioning to see who will tough it out and then let the kid compete at some point to see if you missed anything in drills. After a few nights of this have  a meeting or post a list of who survived and earned the right to make the team. I don't do that anymore.

Now we have evaluation camp. Over a period of 10 -12 practice sessions we put in our entire offense. Anything we will plan on doing that year we work on, we mix this with skill drills that work on pieces of the offense and transition/competitive drills to keep energy high. During this time we do three levels of evaluation:
- Team Player
- Off Court Player
-Program

At the end of the sessions we announce teams for that year. Then we spend more time on individual skill development and defense.

Team Player and Off Court Player

This is an assesment of the players we have in terms of desirable basketball and program traits. We examine the following traits in every player and each coach ranks them out of 4:

-Atheticism (Agility, Verticality, Flexibility)
- Speed/Quickness
-Offensive Skills
-Defensive Skills
-Rebounding
- Leadership
- Hustle
-Intelligence (Decision Making, Application of Concepts, Ability to Adjust)
- Focus
- Complication Free (Drama, Laziness, Attitude)
- Size (Height, Length, Wing Span, Strength)
- Experience (Level of competition previous, Programs involved with, Camp/Club experience)

This takes several days or even weeks to determine, as we need time to see players in various settings. We need to talk to teachers, former coaches and other persons of influence in their lives to make all these determinations. In the end coaches will agree on a total score for each player.

Program

Once the numbers are set for each player the coaches will rank them from 1-x based on the numbers. We then decide who will make what team.

In our high school setting we generally follow this pattern:

- Best 8-10 kids based soley on the rankings make varsity.  Then we fill in remaining roster spots (depending on team size) with any remaining grade 11-12's on the list from highest rank to lowest.

- Any left over 11 and 12's are met with and given opportunities to be involved with the program in other ways (managers, officials, work with minor program) etc.

- We now take the best remaining 9/10's to make up the JV team until the roster is filled. Any leftover players are given the same options as left over 11's and 12's.

In the time we've begun doing this we've been more successful at weeding kids out on their own and over timethen we had in shortened time frames of the past. Players who are able have a chance to show over time, and deficiencies become apparrent on and off the court after a few weeks, making decisions easier.