It’s very easy to over-collect plays and drills (trust me, my FastDraw library is chock full of plays and diagrams).
There’s certainly value in having a lot of options and being able to pull from a database when you want a specific type of action.
And, truthfully, it’s just fun to collect plays and drills.
But, if you don’t have some kind of system…it can start to be overwhelming.
Personally, I enjoy using the Marie Kondo method of organizing my playbook and drill book:
If the drill doesn’t spark joy in my coaching heart, I let it go.
If it does, I keep it.
Whether or not you have a FastDraw (or some other play database) account, there are two main ways to organize your plays:
When does the play happen?
Half Court Actions
The things you run against a set defense…whether zone or man
Transition Actions/Early Offense
Secondary break actions, actions that flow into your offense, base transition philosophies
Full Court Actions/Press Breaks
What do you run against full court pressure (man and zone)?
End of Game/Late Clock Situations/Delay Game
What do you run in a BLOB or SLOB situation? Down 3? When you need a deep ball play? End of quarter to wind down the shot clock?
What is the main type of action? What TYPE of play is it?
You could organize by formations.
5 Out? 4 Out? Horns? Dribble Drive? Continuity Ball Screen? Princeton? Flex? Etc?
You could organize by specific actions.
Backdoor plays, ball screen sets, lob plays, post isolation and penetration isolation plays, zone sets, etc.
You could organize inbound plays
BLOBs, SLOBs, vs zone, vs man
Or however else you want!
Once you have an idea of those two categories and you’ve gotten rid of the crap you don’t like - you’re ready to start prepping for your official playbook for the season…
It’s time to choose what you’re going to run this year.
Your playbook is what you are actually planning on running next season. These are the plays that made the final cut.
Drop the rest, leave it in your database to take a look at later, and focus on running what you choose as well as you possibly can.
Here are the categories I use when making a plan for the upcoming season:
Concepts
This is our foundational offense. If we run Princeton, that’s what I put here. If we are heavily a dribble-drive team, those are the concepts we play by.
For me, this is the “play after the play”. What ACTUAL basketball concepts are you teaching your kids about things like baseline drive rotations, one-more passes, drive-kick-swing, what happens on a post touch, etc.
You might not have a bunch of plays here, but it wouldn’t hurt to draw your concepts out either.
Half Court Sets vs. Man
These are the plays we will be running against a set man-to-man defense.
This is based on a lot of things (personnel, experience, your philosophy, etc.)
I like to have 1-2 of the following:
specific ball screen sets tailored to my best players and their strengths
a few isolation plays to let my best players go to work
some screening type plays to make the defense guard us/let them make a mistake
anything else that really fits my best offensive players and their skillsets
Half Court Sets vs. Zone
I do the same thing as I did with my man sets…but for zone.
What plays allow me to put my best players (shooters, playmakers, post players) in a position to punish a zone?
I’ll usually have 2-3 sets I like here.
Zone Offense
I like having a concept or continuity-based option against zone defense. I’ll put that here…but it’ll probably just be one thing.
Press Break
I’ll keep this simple. One zone press break and one man press break.
If you play a few teams that run something funky in the fullcourt, you may need to add more here.
Pocket Plays
These are 4-5 plays that I just didn’t feel great about ditching.
These could be very simple plays I could draw out of a timeout…or plays that fit our team and I think we might use later in the season.
Keep these in your back pocket, in the front of your mind, etc. for when you want to do something different during the season.
Late Game Situations
How extensive you get here is your personal choice…but I wouldn’t overdo my time with these. I’d also try to choose a few plays that can overlap.
End of Quarter/Game - half court sets, full court sets, BLOBs, SLOBs
A “need 2” play and a “need 3” play
Man BLOBs
I try to keep these all out of the same formation but with tons of reads to add as the season goes on. You might prefer having a few different sets.
I’ve found, on the high school level, going beyond 3-4 is pretty much a waste of time.
Zone BLOBs
Have 2-3 zone inbounds sets to attack weak points of the zone
SLOBs
Whether you are just trying to get the ball in or go right into some kind of action, have 1-2 SLOBs ready.
All of this might be a little difficult to visualize - but fear not!
I’ve created a document to help you figure all this out:
It’s going to be very tempting to keep everything.
You know, because you juuuuussssssst might use it later.
BUT…I want you to think about the fact that you might not get your entire team until the football team ends their state playoff run, there might be 15 snow days that take away practice dates, and you might have only one hour to practice with two baskets twice a week because of rec league volleyball coming in later.
You know, all those things the guys at Duke and UCLA and Kentucky don’t have to worry about but high school coaches/small college coaches/AAU coaches who only practice once a week do.
So, keep it simple. Choose the absolute very best out of your options. And absolutely dominate that.
Once your team has that down like a dream, then start to add a few things.
When all else fails, ask this question:
WHAT DO I ABSOLUTE NEED TO MAKE SURE I HAVE INSTALLED BY THE TIME WE PLAY OUR FIRST GAME?
Start there. Master that. Expand out.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.