Why US, RP lose

Kirk Collier is miffed. The American trainer of Red Bull Barako has been preaching team basketball for years, and his colleagues in the United States have largely been ignoring him. But, if one were to study the points he raises in a thesis on the decline of American-style hoops, it bears closer watching. Collier predicts that, as in the last Men’s World Championships, the US Dream Team is heading for disaster in next year’s Athens Olympics.

"It should come as no surprise to anyone that the United States basketball team, which was made up of star players from the NBA, lost not one but two games en route to finishing a very disappointing fifth in the World Basketball Championship held in Indiana," Collier begins. "Hopefully those two losses will serve as a wake-up call not only to the NBA but also to all levels of organized basketball in the US.

"For at least the last eight years I have been in constant and many times heated debate with my coaching counterparts in the US, arguing the point that if we continue to play and rely on individual efforts and the one-on-one style of the basketball for our success, particularly in international competitions, we will be decreasing the odds of continued world dominance and, at some point in the not too distant future, struggle to qualify for the Olympics."

Collier’s hypothesis is simple. Young American players often start out trying to beat their man through innate athletic ability. They blow by and jump over everyone, technique be damned. This carries throughout their school years, until they reach a point wherein they face players of equal athletic prowess. By then, he concludes, it will be too late to learn team play.

"The writing is on the wall and it’s abundantly clear: the foreign players and teams play the game of basketball better, smarter and more skillful than we Americans," the 40-year old teacher explains. "Their teams, especially the Europeans, South Americans and South Koreans, have five players playing as one. Their utilization of team concepts gives them a distinct and significant advantage over the US teams that have five players playing as five separate individuals relying mainly on one or two individuals’ efforts, talents and skills."

He illustrates the simple matter of outside shooting. In the US (and, in parallel, here in the Philippines) shooting is in a grave decline. How many real shooters are left out there, especially at the PBA level? In Europe, outside shooting is blooming. Almost everyone can hit a perimeter or long-range shot.

Collier’s second point is made with the simple example of the pick and roll. In the US, the recipient of the pick is presumed to get the ball and take an open shot. In Europe, it is more common that the person setting the pick gets the ball, because he’s usually in a better position, or end up with the advantage in a mismatch.

"The foreign teams embrace and employ the team philosophy into their system of play," says Collier, who used to administer Nike camps in the US. "Their offensive strategies are based on working together utilizing movement, passing, picking and spacing to create high percentage opportunities to score field goals. These usually come via assists, as opposed to the US style, which is usually based on dribbling, one-on-one and athleticism to create scoring opportunities."

Granted, Collier says, individually talented players are exciting. But they meet success less and less frequently, primarily because, when you have the ball, all five defensive players have their eyes on you. In the European model, the players cutting and moving without the ball are infinitely more dangerous, because they each have only one man watching (and often without full attention).

"Great one-on-one players collectively rarely make for a good team. Using this past NBA season as a reference, all the great one-on-one players: Kobe, Vince, T-Mac, Marbury, A.I. and Steve Francis either didn’t make the playoffs or lost in the first or second round," he posits. "The Portland Trail Blazers, the team with arguably the most talent from top to bottom for the past five years, did not make it past the first round this year and have not been past the second round in the preceding four years."

That is USA Basketball sent shivers up Collier’s spine when it announced that most of the players mentioned would form the core of the US Dream Team. He says that, at the onset, Allen Iverson has never been an effective point guard, no matter who the other high scorer on the Philadelphia 76ers has been. Five of the top ten scorers in the NBA are on the next Olympic team.

"The most widely asked question by NBA scouts when evaluating prospective draftees are: 1. Can he create his own shot? and 2. Can he break down the defense? The problem with this mode of questioning being used to evaluate prospective basketball talent is it places too much emphasis on one-on-one skills and it does not take into consideration that basketball is first and foremost a team sports," Colliers concludes.

Collier, who also runs the Red Bull Quantum Leap basketball camps, cites seven points of differentiation. They are ball movement, player movement, timing, spacing, decision-making, execution and individual skills. He says players like Tim Duncan are a rarity, and notes that Duncan, who is from the Virgin Islands, did not come up through a big-time college basketball system the way other players did. With that in mind, he issues this warning:

"If the US wants to continue their world dominance in the sport of basketball they must first realize that basketball is first and foremost a team sport. And it is most effectively played when the five players on the court play as one. They must understand that skills such as passing, moving without the ball, spacing and shooting are much more valuable than dribbling, running, jumping and dunking. They should abandon the strategy of over-reliance on their players’ individual talents and one-on-one skills."

Amen. Is anybody listening?

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Keep an eye out for this week’s college basketball special on The Basketball Show on IBC-13 at 4 p.m. We introduce a new segment, the Selecta Moo Basketball Basics, an instructional portion for kids. Next week’s episode (August 2) will be aired an hour earlier to give way for the PBA Mabuhay Cup.