Passing III

Never call for the ball on offense.

• You don't know if you are in fact the best choice for your teammate to pass to.
• You disturb your teammate who is also insulted that you're implying your judgment is better than his.
• You alert the defense to where the ball is going.  You diminish the value of the pass to you if your teammate then decides to make it.

Never condescend or insult your teammate's passing ability by approaching him to make a pass to easy.  Passing loses its joy, its fun, its interest if you are approaching the ball instead of being in motion away from the ball to create challenging and valuable pass opportunities.  Especially if a teammate with the ball has not used his dribble, do not approach him to seek a pass.  He can easily dribble to the spot you are at, so nothing is gained by passing to you.

When I see short passes among players on the perimeter, I call it "rinky-dink passing."  Team members without the ball need to make intelligent cuts at viable angles away from the ball where creative and effective passes can be received.  After you make a pass, immediately break for an open avenue to make yourself an attractive potential target for an effective and valuable pass.  

A team that passes well ideally will constantly be giving the ball up and getting it back again in advantageous positions.  As it now prevails, players are reluctant to pass because so much credit attaches to one-on-one effort.  Team effort gives each team member good shot opportunities from time to time.  

In passing there is often only a very, very short window of opportunity to make the right pass.  If you miss that opportunity and then throw a similar pass moments later, it may no longer be an effective pass at all.  I often see a man forward in or near the corner as the ball comes upcourt.  He is wide open.  The man with the ball destroys the value of that pass if he first dribbles over that way, giving the defense lots of time to cover that man.

Good team passing depends a lot on goodwill and camaraderie among teammates.  Unfortunately, this allows some players to monopolize this ball because other players do not want to create antagonism by objecting to that player's selfishness.  This is why I say that in many, nay most cases, a team's "best player" is also their worst player. 

Rebounding

I like the idea of one-handed "tip" and "tap" rebounding rather than two-handed grasp-and-swing-elbows rebounding.  First, two-handed rebounding necessitates a lot of aggression for the purpose of boxing out, and this make the game more like football than it ought to be. 

If your coach encourages you to seek to top the loose rebound to your teammates, you are largely freed up from tangling with opposing players and you can use your creativity and range to get your fingers on that ball and deflect it as propitiously as possible.  It is often possible to tap the ball far upcourt to a teammate who is out front on a potential break-away.  But this won't happen for a team playing box-out and grasp-with-two-hands rebounding.

Loose Ball Technique

The diving-for-loose-balls mentality or ethos is widely acknowledged to be ideal basketball technique.

I have an entirely different series of thoughts on this subject.  It was re-inforced when I read Larry Bird's autobiography recently.  Diving for loose balls was very much in line with Bird's general style of play.  And, as a result, he was plagued with injuries for much of his career.

Thus, reason number one, or shall we say, at least counter-argument number one for why not diving for loose balls may be advisable, is, your career may last longer while also the time you spend on the sidelines recovering from injury may also be reduced.

But a second reason is this: if you commit to aggressively pursuing a loose ball, you may in fact not gain control of that ball, in which case you will be out of position to play defense.  You may look like an aggressive "court warrior" by going hard for that ball, but only a more refined estimation will take note if, because you have done so, the other team gets an easy basket. 

Frankly, I sometimes refrain from going for a loose ball, a rebound, or a steal simply because, at that particular moment, I feel it may behoove me to conserve that energy and wait for a more opportune occasion. 

This can look very improper and ineffectual in the prevailing wisdom.  I sometimes have players berating me - "what's the matter, that ball was right there, are you lazy, are you sleeping?"  I often find that there is an advantage in maintaining a kind of calm playing style rather than being "slap-happy".  That kind of aggression is contagious, it often results in fouls, and it can take the fun out of the game.