3 Key Questions to Answer before Deciding on an Offense.

It is weird how sometimes thinking about one thing can leads you to an unrelated conclusion on another topic. I’ve been thinking a lot lately moving into the season about our offensive principles, our team, our talent etc. As a result most of the discussions I’ve been in have been about very specific things: types/ angles of screens, evaluating talent, types of movement, shooting technique . . . you get the idea. While processing all of this though, I came to a minor epiphany regarding selecting your teams offense.

I like breaking things down to their base components when talking about basketball. There are too many conversations in our sport that come down to having the marker last or arguments over preferences in shades of gray. Maybe because I’m simple, but when I coach I want everything to line up. What I believe, needs to match how we play, and therefore how I coach and what I teach. I think when we talk about offense as a basketball community, there are too many factors that come into discussions about preferred offensive tactics. We’ve got a billion dollar industry built on coaches trying to sell you on their tactics; fighting over which one is superior is a waste of energy.

I think before you wade into any conversations, thoughts or even purchases in regards to what you want to do on offense this year your need to stop and think about some core questions that may resolve all these issues for you.

 

Question 1: When push comes to shove who do you trust more to make shots: your best player vs/over defense or the open player you have on the floor?

We can argue philosophy and system all day here is the reality of offense.

There are coaches who want to get the ball to certain players in certain situations to make plays and shots regardless of how they are defended.  Whether you are a star coach, into post touches to get points/foul shots, or a sets and continuity coach that is getting people the ball in particular spots: what is comes down to is basically the same thing. A contested shot by the players you trust to take them is a better option than open looks and touches by the other players on the floor.

On the flip side you’ve got coaches who either have been blessed with superior talent, believe they can train all players to be shooters, or just preach team first. Regardless of the reason they teach motion offense, or principled offenses where the purpose is to get the best shot possible from whomever that happens to be. They believe in their kids and/ their coaching and/ their system enough that whoever they have on the floor is trusted to take and make shots/decisions when that is what they are given.

One is not right and one is not wrong they are different approaches. Before you even talk about offense you need to decide who and when you are ok with taking shots. You also need to decide if you are training everyone to make decisions or training positions/particular players to do certain things. This can take a lot of the thoughts and debate over what you are going to do on offense.

 

Question 2: Who do you want making plays?

If you want players running your stuff and you control the chess piece then certain types of offenses lend themselves to that.

If you’ve got play makers or key players that you want making decisions and everyone else reading off of them, then certain offenses lend themselves to that.

If you want all of your player making decisions and reads, then again certain types of offenses lend themselves too that.

The easier way to look at it might be “how big a control freak are you?” Who gets to make decisions and decide when and where to attack? Who gets to decide when and where to shoot? If you are ok with players making this choice all the time, that is going to lead to different offensive choices.  If you want to eliminate some players freedom or dictate movement and choices entirely that will be an entirely different choice.

 Question 3: What can you get away with on your team?

This is a biggest logistical question and is connected to larger organizational issues:

- How much practice time to you have?

-What is your ability level?

- Are you developmental or competitive?

- Are you teaching for a season or as part of program?

- Are your kids capable in practice and games execute the pre-requisite skills for running this offense?

 Once you know your three answers to these key issues selecting an offense for your team or group should be easy. Knowing your answers to these will be different then everyone else to varying degrees, should eliminate much need for debate over which is better and why.