cupcakesnake wrote:I used to think of helioccentric offense as being too predictable. People use the Wilt railroading example a lot. I think the Harden/D'Antoni/Moreyball Rockets is another good example. Those Rockets tried to trim the fat and only take the most efficient shots possible (Harden drive, Harden lob to Capela, Harden pass to the right corner, Harden step back). But when the Rockets failed it looked too dogmatic because it allowed defenses to overload against that short list of moves. Defenses that are prepared for a specific action are going to be more likely to be able to lower the efficiency of those actions.
Then there was Cleveland Lebron (either version). Lots of Lebron detractors complained he monopolized the ball too much, wasted teammate's talents, or didn't utilize all the off-ball things he should be so good at. The pro-Lebron perspective was that it didn't make sense to take the ball out of Lebron's hands because the ball in Lebron's hands produced the best possible offense. Lebron was lot more improvisational than Harden, which probably made him less brutally efficient in some regular seasons but more resilient as a scorer/playmaker in the playoffs.
When you get into helioccentrism with a genius-level passer (specifically Nash, Jokic, Magic), that's going to produce all-time great offense. Jokic may not monopolize the ball as a ballhandler like Nash and Magic did, but the Nuggets system still runs through him getting touches and being involved in every action. I think that Jokic can add screening and all-time brutal paint scoring to the helioccentric model is something (like others have mentioned) that we haven't seen before, despite the passing pivot being around as long as the NBA.
But even with someone like Luka, (who is the new Lebron is terms of the narrative of ball dominance and teammates) we're seeing how modern offensive principles increase offensive efficiency in a helio model. The kinds of screening action that Luka runs off of is so much more sophisticated than anything than Nash or Magic had to work with. So it's helio offense in terms of using, but the team is working harder/smarter to put the helio playmaker in positions of advantage.
Good thoughts. Let me take this on a bit of a tangent.
We use the term "heliocentrism", if we're honest, because that term already existed in another field, it's fun to borrow space terminology, and it kinda fits what was being seen with LeBron that has grown from there.
As I've alluded to, if we really want to take a system that fits what heliocentrism describes more literally - with the star at the physical center rather than a merely star-dominated system - then Jokic is the modern player who really fits that...but dwelling on this is pedantic. The term means "LeBron-like", and it is what it is. Hence while people may accept Jokic under the same umbrella, they cry out for different terminology.
I think Quarterback makes a lot of sense for the LeBron/Luka's of the world. Now, I also think it makes sense for any dominant on-ball decision maker regardless of where they are on the shoot-pass spectrum, and I understand why people feel like these guys need a label that also indicates they are volume scorers. But just in terms of how these guys actually play, I think it has clear analogy to gridiron football the quarterback position, but can be approached many ways, from pocket-only to dual threat.
The key difference here is that basketball Quarterbacks can pass the ball from anywhere at any time. If gridiron football allowed their quarterbacks to do this back in the day, well, the sport would have turned out very differently. So then, the analogy breaks there, but analogies have to break somewhere, and here were talking about a difference that only exists because of the prohibitive rule that that sport made for itself. Pretty good.
What about Jokic? Well, I'll mention the word "Pivot" - which will always be a correct term to use, but is now ambiguous - before moving onto another sport.
Consider the position of
trequartista in association football (soccer). Note that the article is about several positions, not just the trequartista, but here's some insight into the trequartista position:
‘Three Quarters’ might not make much sense without really knowing the context. It is basically three quarters from midfield to the strikers - a bit more striker than midfielder, but still incorporating both sides of the game. Although the Trequartista is a dying breed in football, it has provided the world with some of the greatest and most exciting footballers of all time.
They are tasked with linking the midfield and attack, in a similar vein to how the Regista does it - just that the Trequartistas do it further up the field. Numbers also matter more, with goals and assists playing a big part in measuring a player’s adeptness at the Trequartista role.
Those playing the role need to be extremely skilled on the ball must have the ability to play in tight spaces and also need to have that special spontaneity that can not be taught.
However, these types of players were of a particular niche that is becoming less and less available in the modern world of football, as players are needing to evolve into team players that are required to work for their side as hard as possible in defence and attack. This has meant that Trequartistas, who generally were given a free role, and one without the burden of needing to track back to help their team maintain their shape, have slowly been fazed out.
In summary, a Trequartista is a player with the type of brilliance on the ball that enables them to constantly be a threat and create multiple chances per game in the attacking third, all the while being the link between midfield and attack with intelligent movements that disrupt the opposition’s structure and help their teammates find space that would not exist without them. They are the heart of their team but are less and less in supply due to the nature of the ever-evolving game being unable to accommodate them because of their need to forgo their defensive duties.
One might think the strategic obsolescence of the role in its originating sport would make it a bad analogy to make going forward, but I actually think it's helpful that this analogy immediately raises the question of "Is this a role that can be be counter-strategized into oblivion?" Because, of course, it sure seems like it was back in the 1940s. Whether or not abandoning this approach was actually the right strategic adaptation we'll probably never have the data to check, but en masse teams at the time increasingly moved toward just having the guy try to score rather than playmake.
What's so interesting to me about this is the way this style of play (Pivot as Passer) has existed in the time since its displacement as the dominant way the game is played.
It continues to live on through the Harlem Globetrotters, where the "Pivot" is the Lead Clown. Think about what the Globetrotters do to "trick" their opponents - it's the guy with the ball threatening to do something other just shoot. Worked beautifully for building what the Globetrotters became.
We get an aftershock of the Globetrotters in competitive basketball when Connie Hawkins is finally allowed to play.
We also get other playmaking bigs in the '70s, most notably Bill Walton.
And then it just seems to die. Why? Was it just not that effective any more? Well, I think everyone who saw Walton with the Celtics in the mid-80s would acknowledge he was plenty effective when he was physically himself.
So, it may be just a thing where there aren't enough players with the physical dimensions that have "that special spontaneity" for it to be a thing that coaches are looking to make use of, and thus the knowledge of the possibility gets lost rather than find some optimal minority ratio.
And thus it takes someone truly extreme in talent to break through in this way and end up reshaping an NBA franchise around him, when there really hasn't been anything like this for decades. And specifically, more extreme than it takes to merely be effective in this role, which may cause the ratio of its use in the NBA to begin a climbing trend.
More than anything else though, I'm really, really hoping that the broader basketball world is watching what Denver is doing with Jokic, and they begin seriously looking to find young guys who might be able to play like this and not let them fall through the cracks.
Last note: One might object to the implication that Jokic represents a player that literally doesn't get back on defense, but keep in mind that "Quarterback" also comes back a physical reference frame.
I actually find the fact that both terms (Quarterback and Trequartista) could be argued to mean the same thing a fun wrinkle because I don't think it would even occur to those hearing the terms to confuse the two, quite distinct concepts.
