In Reply to: You have more coaching experience than I but I wonder if this... posted by Born2BBruin on July 06, 2024 at 11:00:29
knowing almost instantly how to play together. And yes this can be evident in pickup games where strangers can play off of each other and collectively execute team concepts.
Pick up games and highly structured games have similarities but IMO are also completely different. Pick up games don't have sophisticated defenses designed to take an opponent's strengths away or render certain players noneffective. Offenses designed to combat sophisticated defenses are complex and nuanced well beyond anything one will see in a pickup game.
I remember when I was coaching one of the things we worked on a lot was a controlled fast break. In high school, at least at the level of high school I was coaching at there was a lot of continuity. Players rarely transferred in or out which meant that most of the families of the players I was coaching were stable and didn't move much (for better or worse). I wasn't coaching players who were, along with their families, making basketball decisions as to where they would go to school, play, and maybe live. So, other than seniors graduating we had the same kids playing 4 years in our system.
Patterns, schemes, and fundamental drills didn't change much. Year after year we were teaching the same stuff pretty much the same way. I remember that it might have been a year or two into all this before we saw a well executed controlled/delayed break. I remember sitting on the bench in the second half of a mid season game (it was the second half because our offense was on our end of the court) when one of our guys got a rebound, got an outlet pass to a wing, the ball was passed to middle, the guard dribbled up court to one of the elbows, the wings cut to the basket, there was no openings, the guard held the ball momentarily and passed to the strong side corner, no opening, the ball moved back to the wing, then to the top, reversed to the weak side wing and then to the opposite corner, the ball then went down low to the block, and then back up to the other elbow for an open look with no dribbling after the initial guard on the break got to the elbow.
I remember noting how perfect that whole thing was executed. I remember thinking how effortless and easy it looked. Everyone on the court knew what to do, where to be, and did what they did instinctively. Then I thought that it took years of drilling and playing for that to happen. Team building is a slow process. Even very experienced players need time to develop that team instinct to such a high degree when playing against other very experienced players also drilled on developing their own team instincts.
I don't think at this level it takes years, but it can take a season or almost a whole season or it could start to show up in games within a matter of a pre-conference schedule. Every team is different, every coach will have different results from every team he may coach. This current UCLA basketball team has so many new parts to it, these new guys are learning a whole new system and they're all learning how to play with new guys. It's going to take some time for this team to realize its potential, it's just a matter of how much time it will take.