Mike D'Antoni Discussion: post in 7 seconds or less

solenstyle wrote:The only thing I hated about his conference is him saying that he thinks posting up isn't efficient.

My face when he said that

not as efficient as a pick and roll. he's right.

of course, players like kobe and shaq can deal with double teams, but like he said, that usually has the teams best defender guarding them.

the pick and roll creates mismatches, spreads the floor, and gets easier shots. mike was referring to the post up plays where the ball is dumped in and the team stands around. double/triple teams, forced shots, and a crowded paint.

I sat through his whole presser. He didn't give me the impression that he's changed at all....he still believes in upping the tempo, and believes that they better benefits from more possessions. He seemed to be in real denial of the fact the three of the starters are very good to great post players, and left a lot of questions unanswered as to how this roster is going to fit his system and its' core philosophy.

solenstyle wrote:The only thing I hated about his conference is him saying that he thinks posting up isn't efficient.

My face when he said that

He said that a "straight postup" is inefficient. Which is true. That's why in the triangle, we have cutters moving off the ball when the big man catches it, so the defense isn't setup to defend it. In the Princeton, we utilize multiple screens to allow the big man to setup in post position with the defense scrambled.

That's why Mike Brown's offense stunk so much last year. Too many "straight postups" with the defense set and ready to defend it.

lakerfan2 wrote:

solenstyle wrote:The only thing I hated about his conference is him saying that he thinks posting up isn't efficient.

My face when he said that

not as efficient as a pick and roll. he's right.

of course, players like kobe and shaq can deal with double teams, but like he said, that usually has the teams best defender guarding them.

the pick and roll creates mismatches, spreads the floor, and gets easier shots. mike was referring to the post up plays where the ball is dumped in and the team stands around. double/triple teams, forced shots, and a crowded paint.

I've always had the opinion that inside out wins. As long as the player posting up can pass out of the post, reads the defense well, and the other players move, posting up is efficient. There is no denying that.

kray28 wrote:I sat through his whole presser. He didn't give me the impression that he's changed at all....he still believes in upping the tempo, and believes that they better benefits from more possessions. He seemed to be in real denial of the fact the three of the starters are very good to great post players, and left a lot of questions unanswered as to how this roster is going to fit his system and its' core philosophy.

That all depends on how we're increasing possessions. Are we playing D and forcing TO's, or are we just going to take shots in 7 secs or less? If it's D, then I agree. We should increase the tempo and possession count. Stop being a lockdown defensive team like we were under Brown and become a trapping and pressure D team to force TO's and get out in transition.

I think his answer was that it wasn't going to be as quick as 7 secs. He at first used the rather trite "best shot in 24 secs or less", but elaborated more later to say that would definitely trying to get a good shot off sooner rather than later.

I didn't hear much talk at all about defense...other than some token asides about relying on the defensive specialists on the team. I know some of the assistants are defensive specialists...they'll probably handle the details and I'm sure it's not D'Antoni's bailiwick anyway. I just wonder what the defensive philosophy is going to be, and whether it will be able to integrate properly with the offense.

Was fine with the presser ... only moment I was like "wtf" is when he said ( twice) Metta was a good PNR player ...

He's right about the post up thing ... you create mismatches off the PNR and get easier " post ups" and shots at the basket ...

Kray28 wrote:I think his answer was that it wasn't going to be as quick as 7 secs. He at first used the rather trite "best shot in 24 secs or less", but elaborated more later to say that would definitely trying to get a good shot off sooner rather than later.

I didn't hear much talk at all about defense...other than some token asides about relying on the defensive specialists on the team. I know some of the assistants are defensive specialists...they'll probably handle the details and I'm sure it's not D'Antoni's bailiwick anyway. I just wonder what the defensive philosophy is going to be, and whether it will be able to integrate properly with the offense.

^D'Antoni mentioned that our defense will have to carry us while we learn the offense. I don't think we'll be playing Mike Brown lock-down defense under D'Antoni. Especially if we're looking to up the tempo. It'll be trapping and pressure D designed to force TO's and get out in transition. That's the kind of defense we played during the Showtime era.

Watched the last part of the conference ... and he already sounds better than Brown ... we will see - I am worried about the tempo so far, and overplaying certain players ... but I don't think he can do worse job at that than Brown did so ... either way it's gonna be an improvement

It's gonna be an improvement

One thing someone in the D'Antoni thread mentioned (and praised) concerned me. It was the claim that if you're the best team, you want as many possessions as possible so you'll have more chances to score.

Problems
1. Is there an objectively best team? Or is it that if teams play a certain way and force other teams to do different things there will be a team that is the best? So, if playing up tempo isn't your team's strength, then more possessions doesn't mean greater chances of winning.

2. Isn't more possessions a good thing only when you're getting efficient scoring opportunities? 100 possessions at 50% shooting should net 100 points (all deuces); 110 possessions at 45% shooting should net 99 points. But 100 points in 100 possessions is both more points and more points per possession than 99 in 110.

3. Can the frenetic pace be maintained by this group? I'm going to look at ages quick and do some figuring.

Average age of players playing the most minutes for D'Antoni...

04/05 Phoenix 25.1
05/06 Phoenix 27.2
06/07 Phoenix 27.5
11/12 Lakers 30.8

Calculation: add up top players' minutes. Multiply by their age. Divide total minutes*age by total minutes. This gives average age of the player logging each minute among the top 8 (short rotation).

Distribution is skewed right. a median would be a better measure of central tendency.

don't like the tempo comments. not because i believe this team can't run, but because it's a continuation of the belief that offense is what matters. his focus is on getting more possessions so that you can score, but this also gives the other team more possessions. thus, your dominance, philosophically, is contingent upon offensive execution.

sadly, i agree with him on post-ups. the decriminalization of the zone defense has made it much more difficult to just set up shop on the low block. your post guy better be an excellent passer and decision maker if you're going to predicate your system on it. dwight's not. if he doesn't get an early touch because he beat his guy down the floor, the post up should be almost abandoned entirely. he needs to be catching the ball on the move near the bucket, off screens set for him or as the roll guy or dive guy from the weak side of a nash/pau screen/roll.

i don't have the stats, but my guess is that the lakers' offense has been pretty inefficient when low post touches occur with less than say, 14 seconds on the shot clock.

Listening to his up tempo explanations is giving me flashbacks of Paul Westhead when he coached Loyola Marymount University. It was a lot of fun to watch, though they would lose against solid defensive teams or whenever they have an off shooting night. Loved it though.

If the Lakers weren't a championship seeking franchise then I'd be all for the exciting shoot as soon as you can approach.

RUNNNNNNN!!!!!!

When all else fails, just go to Kobe.

hahahhahaha, those who do not like uptempo. Uptempo won 5 titles and birthed the NBA into the international lexicon.

kray28 wrote:Distribution is skewed right. a median would be a better measure of central tendency.

Why? If players aren't asked to contribute equally, looking at their percentage of contribution seems to be exactly what is relevant here. Younger guys who don't see the court much would bring the number down and obscure the distribution of the heavy lifting. I'll check the mean though. Probably similar effect.

OX1947 wrote:hahahhahaha, those who do not like uptempo. Uptempo won 5 titles and birthed the NBA into the international lexicon.

The English long bow was dominant. Let's equip our military with them. Short point: can't move seamlessly from what has worked to what will. Btw, you haven't offered sufficient evidence to bolster the claim that uptempo worked.

oh, if we are going there, atomic bomb is still pretty bad arse. how bout that (bleep).

I dunno. From what I heard him emphasize, his priority is less about tempo than it is about spacing and creating open good shots for players where they can be most effective with the ball. That is actually a core triangle principle, but D'Antoni gets to a similar conclusion via a PG centric P&R rather than overloading one side of the floor. I'm glad that we have a guy that has a core conviction and a clear idea of how to accomplish it.

TIME wrote:I dunno. From what I heard him emphasize, his priority is less about tempo than it is about spacing and creating open good shots for players where they can be most effective with the ball. That is actually a core triangle principle, but D'Antoni gets to a similar conclusion via a PG centric P&R rather than overloading one side of the floor. I'm glad that we have a guy that has a core conviction and a clear idea of how to accomplish it.

D’Antoni: Books, papers and articles are funny because they have that catch line: ‘seven second or less.” I don’t even know how that came about, but that’s OK. My whole philosophy is 24 seconds or less. I don’t care if it’s seven, 10 or 20. You just have to get one good shot in those 24 seconds and that’s what we’ll do. I’ll expect us to be a little bit more up tempo – not seven seconds. There’s no reason why there’s not a great flow, whether that’s 13 seconds or 20 seconds

trodgers wrote:

OX1947 wrote:hahahhahaha, those who do not like uptempo. Uptempo won 5 titles and birthed the NBA into the international lexicon.

The English long bow was dominant. Let's equip our military with them. Short point: can't move seamlessly from what has worked to what will. Btw, you haven't offered sufficient evidence to bolster the claim that uptempo worked.

You forgot the horses and bayonets.

When they asked Dwight about what he thought...his eyes blew up real wide and said "110 points, huh?" He made a comment about how the team is old and they're going to have to all get into shape, including him. If this hire was primarily to retain Dwight, forget convincing the fans...you're going to have to convince Dwight himself.

I'm all for watching fun n gun basketball, but know your personnel. As a big guy, you're anchoring the D and if you get a stop or a defensive rebound, there's the kick out and I'm sure there will be a majority of times that Dwight doesn't even touch the ball heading down. Even if he touches it and you're promoting the 3 ball, those shots, if not made, normally come off hot off the rim and everybody has seen our defensive transition woes. A large part of that is cause we're older.

There are so many players in free agent market i think that r suitable for run & gun