DEVELOP THE PLAYERS 1 TROUGH THE OFFENSIVE SYSTEM “Steps to success” Alessandro Magro Contents Introduction: the coach’s Role 3 Offensive system 5 1. What principles do we follow? 5 2 2. The system we want to play with under 16 teams 6 3. What goals do we want to achieve with this system? 10 4. How do we work to prepare that offense? 11 5. How to use the dribble 11 6.Playing far away from the ball 12 7. Co-operating and sharing 12 8. What goals do we set for Under 18 team? 15 9. How do we work on situations of screens and pick and roll? 19 10. Attacking the zone defense 21 11. Last step before the senior team: Under 20 21 Conclusion 23 References list 24 “I, Magro Alessandro , hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person.” INTRODUCTION : THE COACH'S ROLE Basketball is a sport not for coaches but for players who are the main protagonists ; they are like actors performing on a stage, and thanks to their talent, they make basketball a sport which is fascinating and continuously developing. 3 This is the first concept that a coach should always keep in his mind, our constant goal. We coaches have to know that we do not owe the game, just like we do not owe the players we coach. This is our vocation and our only goal and target is to guide and to lead the practice, either the technical and the tactical one, in order to allow our athletes to express their talent at the highest level as possible. Especially those who deal with the youth sectors can not and should not do it for their own satisfaction, but they have to remember that our only goal is to raise players that will be “coachable”, independent and complete in the future. No coaches in the world enjoy to lose games and all the coaches, from my point of view, have to be ambitious and self confident if they want to make something big, but at the same time wins are not the term of comparison to judge their daily work. During the coaching period which goes from 15 to 20 years of age, what they boys learn, whether good or bad, will stay inside them forever, that is why later it will be more difficult to teach them new skills and new habits. That is the reason why we have to work with the guys in order to provide them an example to follow. The way we guide them, the way we coach them on the court during weeks of practices or during games will represent the way these players will act when they will step on the court and will do the thing they love the most: playing basketball. The system should be considered just like a “fluid” where they are immersed, it should be a guide and a support but at the same time it should let them feel free to move, to figure out new opportunities and ways in order to solve problems, to find out, to try, to mistake and to correct. Along this process the role of the coach is observing, suggesting, correct their course, by being strict, severe but without obliging. We have to make them be aware of what we are going through together because the process of improvement of a team is made first by an individual improvement of the people composing the team; and the individual improvement is caused by the understanding of 4 the guys of what we are doing, of what our common goals are and what motivations push us to achieve those goals. The coaches will have to feel satisfied when they will see their players improving and growing up day by day, and won't have to feel down if that improvement will arrive late but they will have to behave a gardener who keeps on watering his plants until he will see the first flowers come out. The path towards the improvement is long and tough to go along to together and to share between coaches, players and the staff. Our system of playing is like a vehicle and thanks to it we have the chance to try to reach our “destinations”, even the furthest ones. Coach Krzyzewski says in his book Leading with the heart that we have to consider every season like a journey, and every journey like a piece of life. Every season is a journey to begin with your team planning together your long-term or short-term and individual or common targets; never denying the chance to dream of impossible ones because that's the only way to exceed the limits. Dealing with youth teams, as I see it, it s not all about teaching the technical or tactical aspects of the game, although they will be important for the future of the players, but also educating, teaching, moulding through personal values and ideals, in order to raise men first than basketball players. “Always keep Ithaca in your mind, to arrive there is your ultimate goal” ( cit. Kavafis) 1 , in basketball such as in life we have to fix goals that motivates us, we have to find the 1 Ithaca- Kostantinos Kavafis strength to start the journey in order to try to reach them and then whenever we will stop and whatever we will find when we will get at the destination, what will really and always matter will be the journey we had...thinking that in any case it was and it will be always worthy. OFFENSIVE SYSTEM 5 WHAT PRINCIPLES DO WE FOLLOW? Let me remind you that we consider our system like a “fluid” where we want to immerge our players in, it's a tool we use to guide and support our technical-tactical teachings for our players. At the early age of 15 or 16 I believe that teaching them how to be independent is our job, they have to learn how to handle the ball, to handle the space they have to move into, in relation to the ball and to their teammates and to their opponents that are playing on the court against them in that very moment. For this reason I like to think of a system that helps them and pushes them to figure out ad recognize different and various solutions in order not to be obliged to look for one- movement executions. This is a system where all the players have to be involved simultaneously and have to make themselves useful and/or “dangerous”. The passwords that will guide us along the path that leads from the Under 16 team to the Under 20 team will be initiative, respect and co-operation. In each offensive system everything begins when you take an advantage on the defense and the most natural way for the guys to get that advantage is to penetrate to the basket. Therefore my first goal will be to have players that will be able to handle the ball and to be able to get the advantage through the dribble. Each athlete, by beating his own opponent with a 1vs1 (initiative) automatically creates situations of advantage which will have to be maintained later and finally finalized and achieved.. The respect is showed towards the teammate's initiative, so that, by playing system of “readings” , each guy has to understand what his teammate is doing and in relations to his movement he has to be able to react. Co-operation means that each player will have to be in the condition to receive the ball and to maintain the advantage created by the initiative and end up with the common objective which is create the best shot for the team. Underlining the situations of penetrate and kick not only you teach them technical skills to 6 chose the right time and right way to have an assist or the way to use the time and the space when and where to be ready and free to receive the ball, but at the same time you teach your players that they have to share the ball and that with the passing of the time they have to develop the skill to be available to pass the ball. Later passing the ball will become a pleasure, something they will enjoy after having understood his power and importance. THE SYSTEM WE WANT TO PLAY WITH THE UNDER 16 TEAMS The objective of every offense is to make a basket, for this reason we have to expect our players to run on fastbreak as much as possible in order to create the highest number of situations of overnumber as possible in order to provide a greater number of situations with a very high percentage of efficiency. Running on fast-break or attacking the opponent's rim should become, with the passing of the time, a mental attitude and to make it happen, the first situation we need to work on is the attitude for the transition (skills that means passing from offense to defense and vice- versa quickly).We want our guys to be able to use all the length and the width of the court while playing, because they will have to give importance to the space since the beginning, a fundamental aspect for the success of any offense. Diag.1 fastbreak spacing 7 Diag.2 spacing in transition We want our players to be quick in turning an offensive situation into a basket on fastbreak; to do that we need the ball to arrive as fast as possible to the dribbler, while all the other 3 players has to think about “open” the court diagonally and running along the sidelines , to create diagonal passing lines in order to have the chance to get to the basket with 3 passes, without dribbling (diag.1).