X's and O's: Style of Play for Next Year

[Dr Aki]

Our only hope of making some waves in the league is to use our youth and focus heavily on D, clearing the glass, and creating turnovers... And then get out and run. Outside of Boozer, Nash and Kobe... We've got pretty young legs.

So focusing on Defensive execution and a deadly transition game is probably our best formula for success.

If we get mired in a half court contest, a offensive scheme that doesn't rely on plays is going to be the most effective... The Tri and the Princeton would be good for that as long as we drill the hell out of them and know them like we know the path to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

i'm already preparing myself for another year of botched transition opportunities and turnovers

[myersia]

Our only hope of making some waves in the league is to use our youth and focus heavily on D, clearing the glass, and creating turnovers... And then get out and run. Outside of Boozer, Nash and Kobe... We've got pretty young legs.

So focusing on Defensive execution and a deadly transition game is probably our best formula for success.

If we get mired in a half court contest, a offensive scheme that doesn't rely on plays is going to be the most effective... The Tri and the Princeton would be good for that as long as we drill the hell out of them and know them like we know the path to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

i'm already preparing myself for another year of botched transition opportunities and turnovers

I can't take it anymore....is that the same chick in all of your avi's? What is her name? I need it now!

[Dr Aki]

Our only hope of making some waves in the league is to use our youth and focus heavily on D, clearing the glass, and creating turnovers... And then get out and run. Outside of Boozer, Nash and Kobe... We've got pretty young legs.

So focusing on Defensive execution and a deadly transition game is probably our best formula for success.

If we get mired in a half court contest, a offensive scheme that doesn't rely on plays is going to be the most effective... The Tri and the Princeton would be good for that as long as we drill the hell out of them and know them like we know the path to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

i'm already preparing myself for another year of botched transition opportunities and turnovers

I can't take it anymore....is that the same chick in all of your avi's? What is her name? I need it now!

lol, you trying to say they all look the same?

but answering your question, no it isn't, it's another girl

[aaron_gray]

Hey is it true that on their 18th birthday, Korean girls essentially get a plastic surgery appointment as a present from their parents?

[Dr Aki]

Hey is it true that on their 18th birthday, Korean girls essentially get a plastic surgery appointment as a present from their parents?

i wouldn't know, i'm not korean

but yes, it probably happens earlier like at 16 yo if they can afford it

[Pointgod]

I'm still kinda pissed that we have a useless Nash sucking up 10 million dollars on the cap. Lin would be the perfect PG to lead a bench mob of Young, Henry, Kelly and Davis. It would be great if we would just run the 2nd units of teams out of the building.

[Dr Aki]

I'm still kinda pissed that we have a useless Nash sucking up 10 million dollars on the cap. Lin would be the perfect PG to lead a bench mob of Young, Henry, Kelly and Davis. It would be great if we would just run the 2nd units of teams out of the building.

it worked out last year before the bench mob came back to earth

[milesfides]

You gotta play to the strengths of the personnel. The only guys who really change the game are Lin and Kobe.

The whole princeton offense that Scott alluded to was vague and meaningless.

You start with the players, the starters, and how they'd fit together.

-A big part of the X and O is how Kobe will play, on the perimeter or the post.
-The only notable wing defender is Wes Johnson, who is a perimeter shooter.
-Considering Lin's attacking style and Wes spot-up shooting, Kobe will probably play iso's on the weakside, in posts or midrange. At this point in his career, Kobe shouldn't be breaking down defenses from the top of the key, especially with Jeremy Lin as his backcourt mate.

Hill is the only big man with post moves, and he just signed a 9m a year deal, so he's going to start.

So, for the main set, I see Jeremy Lin initiating the offense, bringing the ball up the floor, getting high P/R from Jordan Hill. Wes will be ready for the corner three. Kobe iso's on the weakside. This is the biggest opportunity to break down the opponent's defense, because all options are live.

As a secondary, for more halfcourt sets, I see Lin giving the ball to Kobe posting on the block or elbow. Jordan Hill on the opposite side, ready to catch and shoot if his man helps, or cut if he turns his head. Hill is an excellent finisher. Again, Wes is in the corner or on the wing ready for catch and shoot.

As a third option, Hill would post and Kobe would be on the opposite side.

In all scenarios, I omitted a player: the power forward. Clearly the spacing for a sensible offense only works with a stretch four.

That's why Kelly is so important to this team right now. Throw in Boozer, and defenses will sag and be able to defend all three high efficiency options. The result will be a lot of pull up jumpers on the perimeter or highly contested shots in the paint. This has been proven time and time again, most notably in the playoffs.

[TylersLakers]

You gotta play to the strengths of the personnel. The only guys who really change the game are Lin and Kobe.

The whole princeton offense that Scott alluded to was vague and meaningless.

You start with the players, the starters, and how they'd fit together.

-A big part of the X and O is how Kobe will play, on the perimeter or the post.
-The only notable wing defender is Wes Johnson, who is a perimeter shooter.
-Considering Lin's attacking style and Wes spot-up shooting, Kobe will probably play iso's on the weakside, in posts or midrange. At this point in his career, Kobe shouldn't be breaking down defenses from the top of the key, especially with Jeremy Lin as his backcourt mate.

Hill is the only big man with post moves, and he just signed a 9m a year deal, so he's going to start.

So, for the main set, I see Jeremy Lin initiating the offense, bringing the ball up the floor, getting high P/R from Jordan Hill. Wes will be ready for the corner three. Kobe iso's on the weakside. This is the biggest opportunity to break down the opponent's defense, because all options are live.

As a secondary, for more halfcourt sets, I see Lin giving the ball to Kobe posting on the block or elbow. Jordan Hill on the opposite side, ready to catch and shoot if his man helps, or cut if he turns his head. Hill is an excellent finisher. Again, Wes is in the corner or on the wing ready for catch and shoot.

As a third option, Hill would post and Kobe would be on the opposite side.

In all scenarios, I omitted a player: the power forward. Clearly the spacing for a sensible offense only works with a stretch four.

That's why Kelly is so important to this team right now. Throw in Boozer, and defenses will sag and be able to defend all three high efficiency options. The result will be a lot of pull up jumpers on the perimeter or highly contested shots in the paint. This has been proven time and time again, most notably in the playoffs.

Similar to what I was thinking, but, I just can't see Ryan Kelly starting. If he wants to start, he's going to have to improve defensively. And, he's going to have to really impress Scott. I hope so. Because you're 100% right about the spacing.

[Dr Aki]

byron scott in his presser mentioned running the princeton offense

"It's going to be a mixture of a little bit of everything that I've done in New Jersey, New Orleans and Cleveland," he said. "There are a lot of different sets that you can call in the Princeton offense, there's like five different sets. And we won't get into all of the them and we won't even try and work on all of them. It's going to be a mixture of things that I think can make this team successful."

Scott ran a version of the Princeton offense in both New Jersey and Cleveland after taking over for Brown. It's complicated, and for a roster full of new, young players like the Lakers have, his offensive philosophy needs to be somewhat flexible in order to allow them to develop.

what now?

[milesfides]

B-Scott can do whatever he wants, at the end of the day Kobe is going to want the offense to run through him in the halfcourt, and Lin is going to push the ball on the break

Princeton offense is great, but the only guys who fit that offense is Lin, Kobe, and Kelly (and maybe X and Clarkson)

But almost all teams run some variants of the Princeton offense and triangle...ball movement, spacing, and efficient shots are all the end goals

I would love to hear some coach say, what we want to do is just have player X score and everybody else stand around and do nothing

AKA Kobe's Lakers circa 2004-2007

[Kilroy]

The key to the triangle and the Princeton offense is that when run correctly by players that understand it is that it's a reaction offense... There are no plays. They have reaction sets for various situations on the court but they don't stop the flow of the game so a coach can call a play... That's why it's so hard to learn and why half the teams who say they're running 'variations of the Triangle' aren't really... The spurs have similar looks and probably are the best at utilizing variations, because of their intelligence and experience together... But most teams limit their use to setting up a play with a triangle set on the court.

I have no idea if Scott wants to run a pure form of that or if he wants to call plays... But the pure Triangle Offense or Princeton offense or even a reasonable variation is not a simple concept and shouldn't be minimized. It's not just ball movement, spacing and efficient shots.

The goal of ball movement and spacing in basketball, no matter what offense you're running is efficient shots.

The goal of the triangle and Princeton is really to make defenses miss-communicate.

[Dr Aki]

i reckon swaggy, henry, randle and boozer (and beasley) would thrive in the princeton as well (not so sure about lin and nash)

these guys are face-up threats with decent triple-threat skills

it's just we ditched it way too early when we threw and the baby out with the bathwater when we fired mike brown and we don't have a great deal of experience running overall

[Kilroy]

We didn't throw the baby out with the bath water... Brown didn't seem to have any idea what he was implementing... He was selling the Princeton as a way to utilize 2 bigs, as well as selling the benefits of it being a reaction offense and saying Kobe and Pau would get it quick because they ran the triangle. But in practice, he was micromanaging the hell out of it on the court and not letting the players react at all... He was basically handcuffing Nash in the process...
Howard and Pau looked OK in it for a couple games, but he was still setting Pau up too far away from the basket and micromanaging how he and Howard played together... Most likely because Howard is the thinking man's block of wood, and couldn't figure it out.

I think everyone on the team could thrive in a well run Princeton or Triangle... But for the triangle, you pretty much need a back to the basket big with elite passing abilities, which we don't have.

The only person on the team so far that I have no confidence could run the Triangle or Princeton is Young... His bbiq and quart awareness is probably too low.
But no one would ask him to run it... And Lakers fans know that we've had a lot of idiots on the team that still were able to spot up in the Tri and shoot the ball.

But I honestly don't think Scott is going to implement a true reaction offense. Lin's smart enough to run it and Kobe knows how to already, but I just don't see him letting go that much.

We'll see though.

[milesfides]

Triangle offense and princeton has its similarities, but the triangle simplifies the offense in a way that can hide certain players, noticeably a point guard (can just be a shooter, doesn't have to be a conventional penetrating pg) and it does require a big man who can actually form the post element of the triangle - that's why Pau is probably the best post player in the triangle ever - which is why Phil wanted him so badly in NY. The running joke during Shaq and Kobe years was that they never really ran the triangle.

The princeton offense REQUIRES big men who can pass and shoot - the best iteration of this on the NBA level was the Kings with Cweb and Divac, under Adelman.

The idea that the the personnel on this current Laker team fails with its big men. Hill is not a notable passer or playmaker, also his range is limited to that elbow - and he doesn't take a ton of them either.

As I've said, the only big who works is Ryan Kelly because he can pass and shoot - he'd be ideal in a Princeton offense.

Guys like Ed Davis, Boozer, Sacre? Forget about it. They wouldn't be able to play meaningful minutes in the princeton offense.

[iamworthy]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/JNavLN/status/494189996484476928[/tweet]

Shots fired at MDA?

[iamworthy]

Our only hope of making some waves in the league is to use our youth and focus heavily on D, clearing the glass, and creating turnovers... And then get out and run. Outside of Boozer, Nash and Kobe... We've got pretty young legs.

So focusing on Defensive execution and a deadly transition game is probably our best formula for success.

If we get mired in a half court contest, a offensive scheme that doesn't rely on plays is going to be the most effective... The Tri and the Princeton would be good for that as long as we drill the hell out of them and know them like we know the path to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Id like to run PnR with J-Lin and if nothing comes from that throw it in to the post (kobe or JR) and let them go to work. Work meaning either get a good look or suck in the defense and kick it out to a open player for the shot. We have to take smart 3's. Id prefer to do it like the Spurs, off the pass.

[DEEP3CL]

Scott didn't say we was running the full blown Princeton O, he said it'll be a few elements of it. Like miles said it requires bigs that can pass as with the Triangle. I disagree with his assessment that only Kelly is made for it, Kelly isn't that great of a passer from the post which is where he'll need to position himself to function in that offense.

Kelly lacks the upper and lower body strength to physically man the post. That's why when B said elements of it will be ran, the man who will make it go will be Kobe. And we can stick Booz at times. Bit let me say that the Princeton doesn't have to be post up heavy, there's other spaces to operate in that offense.

[milesfides]

Princeton offense isn't a post offense - in fact the kings rarely posted Cweb or Divac as a source of their offense. The reason why the kings worked is because Cweb was able to hit that jumper and both Divac and Cweb were exceedingly adept passers from the HIGH POST / elbow while hitting cutters or kicking it out to shooters.

Kelly wouldn't post at all - that would hurt any form of the princeton offense because the key is for the big men to draw defenders away from the paint in order to create passing lanes. The fact that Kelly is a 3-point shooter is in fact IDEAL for the princeton offense because he will stretch the defense out that much. The fact that he's a 7 footer gives him the court vision and passing angles that very very few players have.

And cherry picking elements of the princeton is inane, because the princeton offense is a fairly all or nothing type of offense. Obviously some compromises will exist due to quality of players.

Which goes back to Kelly...

You can make a list of all the 7-footers who can shoot and pass, and that list will be incredibly short. There's a reason why the princeton offense is hard to see on the nba level - the implementation dies with skilled big men.

If you have 3 perimeter players who can play the princeton then 2 regular bigs, that's not going to look anything like the princeton. Because the baseline action and passing lanes are primarily created by the ability of the bigs to stretch the floor. Essentially the princeton offense is a 5 guard offense that doesn't depend on dribble penetration to create opportunities. It depends on floor spacing created by shooting ability, player movement without the ball, and players' ability to pass to the open man.

Princeton isn't some arcane complex offense. They run this offense on almost every level of basketball, except the nba. All you need is the right players with the right skills, unselfishness is absolutely essential.

That's another reason why the princeton won't work on the lakers. Kobe, Nick, boozer - the ball will stick with them. Too many isolation players on this team.

At the end of the day, they're going to run high pr for lin and post kobe and hill where they are efficient. They need two other 3 point shooters to spread the floor. It's not the princeton. It's just nba basketball, the most common kind.