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Monday, June 2, 2025

Basketball - The Idea Machine

"Everybody says they have a system, but to have a system and then to be a systems thinker, those are two different things. There’s an intention for why their system exists, why they do things. Then, how they tweak within that system, how they understand the interconnectedness of all those things—that’s what makes them unique and separates them from everybody else. It’s asking, ‘Can we do it a different way?’ That, to me, is what makes them special.”" - Michael Silver, in The Why Is Everything

David Mamet explained that there's no "Idea Food Truck" that sells ideas for public consumption. For sure.

Generated, stolen, or inspired ideas, often by analogy, pose opportunity and questions. That's an advantage of reading a lot. Filtering the firehose of ideas poses a disadvantage. 

Not scoring enough? Why? 

  • Talent matters. Better teams have more talent. If you can't recruit it, then you have to develop it. 
  • Does our system match our players? If a team had strong, physical bigs, that might not work well with a five-out system with players away from the basket. 
  • Where do our points arise? Do we score in transition, in the half-court, perimeter scoring, off sets? 
  • If turnovers are a problem, is it mostly decisions or execution? 
  • Where are our 'failed possessions' - turnovers, bad shot selection, inability to finish? 

"Turnovers kill dreams." The Celtics have relatively few turnovers as a team with a high percentage of three-point shots. You might wonder whether transition teams have more turnovers. 


Both Indiana and OKC had lower frequency of turnovers in transition. As Stan Van Gundy says, transition depends less on philosophy than on your point guard. 


These five teams all took north of 45 percent of their shots as threes. 

Applying professional statistics to lower level basketball is a fool's errand. The math depends on your players and team. If you have 70 possessions and an unacceptable 20 or more turnovers, you can score on 50 possessions. If you take 20 threes (making < 25%, yes, we see that) then you get a maximum of 15 points from threes. If you take 30 twos and shoot 40 percent, then you add 24 points. That doesn't quite get you to 40. 


In our area girls' basketball league, it's had to win more than half your games without scoring at least 45 ppg and having a positive point differential. So more wins require specifics to get more and better shots than opponents. 

It's all easy in theory. 

Lagniappe. Ray Allen shooting drill 
Lagniappe 2. Mike Shanahan quote after son Kyle's Super Bowl defeat (edited for language) from "The Why Is Everything" by Michael Silver. 

"“You keep fighting,” he said, his voice hoarse. “That’s *** life. I don’t care what job you’ve got. When things happen, you’ve got to fight through it. You want to get to the mountaintop—what, you’re gonna feel sorry for yourself?  *** You get back up and you keep climbing.”"









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