Meet
‘Big Ball’
Posted by: KCJones on October 31st, 2012
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.‘Small ball’ is the buzzword of the NBA, largely in part to LeBron James and the Miami Heat and their strategy. They basically decided to waive everybody, then scored big, signing LeBron, re-signing Wade and adding Bosh-asaurus Chris with that cap space and then filling in the roster with three-point shooters at the end of their careers who want to win a ring (Battier, Allen) and some draft picks. So two elite wings and a jump-shooting big man. Since decent big men cost so much in the league, and they had all their money tied up, they basically said ’screw big men, we don’t need em’. According to their coach, they are trying to play ‘positionless’ basketball. Which obviously has worked well, resulting in a Championship last season. It’s not a strategy I think a lot of teams can duplicate with success. Mostly because other teams aren’t going to get a LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to do it with, or have multiple players who are athletic and skilled enough to play various court positions. But it works for them because almost everyone can jump out and hit the three. Almost everyone can post up their guy on the low block, even the wings. Almost everyone can handle the ball. In short, they have true athletes at almost every position who have a skillset for doing multiple things and they just rotate guys to the positions on the court where the skills they have can work for them. They post up LeBron. They post up Wade. Bosh spots up for threes, etc. It basically creates havoc trying to defend these guys, pulling ‘big’ defenders out to the perimeter and smaller wings into the low block trying to defend.
So then I thought about our Jazz. Could we do something similar with the players we have? Cause matchup problems on offense with multi-skilled players who can still defend well?
I actually think we could, all while going ‘bigger’ instead of ’smaller’. Basically, you put your five best athletes out on the floor and then rotate them into court positions where their skills are best. Here are the players I think could work in a scheme like that:
Millsap, Favors, Kanter, Marv-Williams, Hayward, Burks, maybe Mo Williams too.
There are still some limitations, like Favors shooting from outside or Hayward posting up (maybe he can, but I’ve never seen that play ran for him) as well as driving to the hoop from the perimeter for Kanter, Favors. But hey, it would be a lot of fun to see that group of guys run the ‘positionless’ offense that Miami is running, and I think they could even see some good success at it while being a good defensive unit because of size and athletecism.
So just a thought on a possible evolutionary step in the NBA and how it could be used by the Jazz.
Replies: 7
Views: 579
7 Responses
“Basically, you put your five best athletes out on the floor and then rotate them into court positions where their skills are best.”
Isn’t this what the jazz have always done? What any team does for that matter? Put their 5 best players on the floor whenever possible and exploit matchup’s whenever possible….
Like you said,however, no other team has a lebron and wade, so it doesn’t work quite as well, but it’s still done.
Well, it seems that way because usually teams try to get their five best athletes at five different positions.
On the Jazz as constructed, I’d say there’s an argument that the five best players are all Centers, Power Forwards and Small Forwards. So how do you play your best five if you’re playing a shooting guard and a point guard all the time?
On another funny note, I was perusing the ESPN comments of the Lakers loss to the Mavericks last night and everyone is calling for Mike Brown’s job and suggesting they hire Jerry Sloan lol.
Haha, that is funny. Really though, Sloan would be a major upgrade over Brown. If the nba was constructed like the nfl, where there are defensive and offensive coordinators, I would peg Brown as a strong candidate for defensive coordinator. However, that guy doesn’t know his a#% from his elbow when it comes to running an offense.
This is proven by the fact that Brown is trying to implement the “Princeton” offense on a team that has the best true pg in the nba on your squad. I was sickened watching them last night and seeing how little Nash touched the ball let alone brought it up the court. One of the reasons Nash is so good is because like a great nfl qb, he can read defenses and see the weaknesses very quickly. That all goes to waste, however, when he doesn’t have the damn ball in his hands to do anything about it.
No joke. Even I could run the Lakers offense. Let’s see…
first option: Nash and Gasol P&R
second option: Nash and Howard P&R
third option: Kobe ISO / Howard post up / Gasol Post up
That was easy.
@Ben you would think it was not that hard huh?? But Burks seemed to sit on the bench all last year as the better player. So yes that would be great if the best players played BUT they don’t
@KC Ya I do not think an argument could be made I think it is truth. We are weak at the PG spot and strong in so many places but yet are not making a move to upgrade our weakest position. Which by the way will start to be exposed tonight when our slow PG try to defend Collison and Roddy. If Tinsley truly plays the back up point like Corbin wants he is going to get TORCHED by Roddy. He torched us last year playing against Tinsley and Watson. Even if we got a decent back up that would be better then having three guys that are no better the 3rd string PG and could possibly not even be in this league any more.
@Dallan agreed! OJ Mayo, Collison, Kaman, and Roddy all had one of their best games last year against the Jazz running, surprise surprise, P&R!
The real question is, if Corbin have the guts to pull Al (and Millsap if thats the case) after the first 3 defensive possessions. The Mavs had no fear of the Mavs, so the Jazz better not expect them to sleep walk through the game.
I know a lot of people don’t like the Burks as PG scenario, but the way the roster is constructed, you cannot tell me Tinsley is a better defender than Burks, or that Tinsley shoots the 3 better. Burks is a better on the ball defender, so Id rather see him playing back up PG on D than guarding the SG.