Interesting rest stop on the highway to hoops stardom

I was at another coach's practice last week and an interesting question came up. Now this guy is one heckuva coach. He's got it going on, and he GETS IT! His team is highly skilled and because of that he is able to run and execute any entry he wishes. But a disagreement came up.

This is the play: Offense broke the press and found themselves with a two on one. Ball on the left wing, other offensive guy on the right wing and the defense was deep in the hole. The guy with the ball on the left wing tried to pass to the other wing, who was making a cut to the goal. Of course the defense picked it off and the coach stopped the action to correct his players.

"When you are faced with a defender that wont come get you," he said, "you have to either shoot the mid-range jumper or pull it out."

I went to him after practice and asked him why, because I vehemently disagree. He explained that he would prefer that his guys shoot the jumpshot, but if they are not willing he thinks they could get a better shot by pulling it out.

Here's my disagreement: when you've got young players you want to get them into the habit of attacking all the time. So I would have told that guy to either shoot the jumpshot or attack the basket and make a move. It's my belief, and this is ground I will be hard pressed to move off of, that you attack all the time. Now I recognize that for the first few years your guys will not be able to pull off the move to score, but eventually they will. And now you've got a guy who can create a shot from that position on the floor. You can always revert to shooting the jumper.

He agreed and he recognized that he has the advantage of having guys who are already highly skilled. So he has a lot of options on what he can do. And that, friends, is EXACTLY the point of this blog.