Nolen I definetely believe what you are saying. Unfortunately we hjust have a difference of opinion on this one. If Stevie stays at PG I could see him becoming an Isiah type of player, which would be great. I guess I prefer the traditional PG rather than the new PG. You make good points, but we just see things differently. Hopefully whatever happens it works out in the long run as a championship so we can look back and laugh at how foolish one of us was! HP: I agree with you on the triangle that a PG hasn't been used much in Chicago or current LA teams, but keep in mind both of those teams had one advantage. The most Dominant player of the time (Jordan & Shaq). Kobe has in some ways took over Pips role in Chicago, he is the point-2 guard in most of the sets, but still his role is to try to get the ball to Shaq first unless someone is wide open. SO no matter who is running the show (Harper, Kobe, Paxson, Pip) their role was to set up Jordan or Shaq for them to get a good scoring opportunity or to create an opportunity for someone else to score. Isiah Thomas is the PG exception. He was the man on the team, yet he was always able to keep his teammates happy. I'm surte winning helped, but when he distributed the ball he did it with a purpose (he usually passed to the right man at the right time). As I said earlier I hope if Francis stays at the point that he can learn from Zeke. Magic is the greatest PG of his time. But he always did a great job of keeping everyone happy. Kareem always got his shots, Worthy was always rewarded for running on the break & Scott & Cooper had a lot of open looks. Magic could have scored but he made the sacrifice to be the best all around PG of all time. He could have easily scored 25 a game and still passed out 8-10 assists, but instead he limited his offensive output & kept the talent (and yeah they had a lot of talent) happy & winning. Bobfinn & Maryland fan: I don't care where Francis wants to play. I want the team to win. Winners make sacrifices for their teams. As mentioned above Isiah could have been like Iverson but he sacrificed, Magic could have scored 25 a game but he sacrificed, Bird involved his teammmates, Dream gave a lot of open looks to Sam, Max. Bird slid over and played PF when McHale was out of the game, before Walton was acquired, and I never heard him complain about having to guard larger players. I never heard Magic complain in the finals game when Kareem was hurt and he played center. Honestly I don't know in the long run if Francis will be a great PG or not (he has all the skills) but I do believe he has the skills now to be a great SG. ------------------
Bobfinn: Sorry I read your post too fast and just realized you were saying what I was saying. Sorry! ------------------
I can't resist but post something just so my signature will show up... ------------------ "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and STATISTICS..." - Mark Twain -
Achebe, Not Spring Break...Work break before our big development cycle begins in 2 weeks. Nolen, I've never really read anything on the Flex except what my HS coaches gave me. You gotta understand, Galesburg, Ill Bball is like Plano, TX football (or some other small town top tier powerhouse). The Flex fundamentals were drilled into our motor reflexes starting with the 7th grade team. By the time we were seniors, not only can you anticipates the movements of your teammates, but you practically feel where they are without even looking. Moving as a team is how we consistently picked apart the Chicago Public League schools that would come down to the corn fields for a lesson in team basketball, including a 125-110 dismantling of Mark Aguire's fastbreaking Westinghouse team, that eventually lost to Isiah Thomas's St. Joseph in the finals their senior years. Running everything through a point guard is not necessary when the team all contributes like that. Your main goal is to react to the defense and get your star into scoring situations. If he's a dribbler, let him dribble. As far as the system is concerned, you never really talk about PG vs SG. 4Chuckie I really don't like this LA and Bulls are different thing due to having the best player in the league. It doesn't matter. The Triangle would still be run the same way. Replace Jordan with Drexler and they don't win as many titles, but Drexler will take Jordan's role and Harper/Paxson still won't be the main dribblers. Same if you place SF into Jordan's role. Point is: if your goal is to get the most out of an NBA motion offense, starting a diff PG will not change SF's stats. Motion must exploit the stars talents,,,and SF is a dribbling/passing superstar. As for reading material Nolen: I've ran into some sites on the Flex while hunting down samples of Flash to get some ideas. Just do a search for Flex Motion Offense. Hell, try Amazon. I'm pretty confident you will find it in your local bookstore as well. Last comments about the Triangle. This is not that great of an invention, albeit all the media hype. I understand it's regarded as a college-level failure. Defenses can clog it up, since everything is predicated on 3 people on strong side. It really cannot work in college because of zone defense.
