Shall Basketball Coaches Continue to Number Player Positions from 1-to-5

There is much debate as to whether or not the “Coach” should number the position of the players. My answer is NO!

I like to number the positions so I can teach my players how the opponent plays and how we can explore the opponent’s predictability at both ends of the floor.

I don’t like predictability in high-level basketball. I think chances for success are greater if the team is not predictable. Tying players to functions based on numbers is a strategy of the past and it only serves the teams with better individual talent. Today’s basketball is positionless.

If you want to level the playing field and defeat teams with more talented players, you need to be more creative and adapt your strategy. This means making your team less predictable on both offense and defense.

What I expect from my players is “intensely trained and coached”. My philosophy is to train my players to play positionless basketball by training them to be specialists of the sport, and not of the position.

I train my players to play facing the basket attacking the basket with movements performed within the time and space appropriate to the “ball-flow” and the “fast pace of the Flow-Ball game” that I try to impose during the competition.

1. If my team’s big man rebounds the ball, he has the freedom to push the ball and start the fast break. This situation is practiced and is part of our game philosophy. In this way, I do not hold my teams to having to start the fast break only with the ball in the hands of the guard, the “#1” player.
2. My players are trained to play facing the basket to explore situations of “mismatch”. That is, if the opponent has slower players or weak defenders, I try to explore that situation and, hopefully, force that particular player to get in foul trouble early in the game.
3. The mismatch situations in positions 3 through 5 are something I like to explore, especially if my players are faster or stronger than the players guarding them. This often forces teams to adjust their matchups and/or switch to a zone defense.
4. When I see that the other team is defending individually and has a key player who scores a lot of points, I try to take advantage of the situation by isolating that player in certain areas of the court. This forces them to play defense and hopefully commit fouls, which takes them out of the game and decreases the other team’s points per possession.
5. I don’t like coaching a team that’s focused on guards – all my players are trained to start the offense, especially in the flow of our transition game. That makes us less predictable and more difficult to defend. It is very easy for the defense to stop a guard-oriented team and that depends on its guard (#1) to be able to run the offense and or maintain their offensive balance.
6. If an opponent uses a taller lineup, to explore their height advantage and bigger size, their “bigs” will have to defend us away from the basket and play a full-court game with and without the ball.

By utilizing “Flow-Ball” my chances of defeating this kind of team are greater. Speed and ability will always prevail over height!

Resuming, my players are trained to play with “ball and man fluency” using continuous movements, cuts to the basket, and without the use of pick-and-roll. Seeking to explore situations of “mismatch”, forcing the opponent’s top scorer to defend, and change the defense to a zone is part of my game philosophy entitled “Flow-Ball”.

In “Flow-Ball”, my team is trained to naturally flow from the defense to the offense without being tied to the “established” norms and functions utilized by the majority of the teams that use numbers from 1 to 5 to categorize and position their players on-the-floor.

My fast break and transition offense are positionless, player-controlled, and executed by filling one of the five lanes of access to the basket in a continuous motion-flow of man and ball.

In my career, I learned that by playing this way, my team became less predictable and more difficult to be defended which are important factors in determining the winner in a competition.

I am not adept at the “half-court game” in both defense and offense. I like the game played with intensity on a full-court basis.

The purpose of the “Flow-Ball” philosophy is to increase the production of points and the total possession time of my team’s during the competition while reducing the time of possession and shooting percentage of my opponents per possession during the competition.

I was able to put “Flow-Ball” into practice and successfully everywhere I coached.

Walter Carvalho
www.wasportsconsulting.com

Regards and Success to all!