Why do TMac and Yao have problems running the RA offense?

The Kings:
The roster, Webber excluded, were non-dominant scorers that fit the motion offense. Webber was a good fit because he was absurdly against playing center anywhere he went. Every coach but Adelman tried to get him to stay in the low post, he rebelled against every one of them. Being put in the no-contact high post was a perfect fit for him and he embraced it.

Evan

 

Which is why it took Phil Jackson to break both Jordan and Kobe and get them to embrace the triangle (triple post motion offense). Adelman doesn't have the command to do the same with McGrady.

 

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None of TMac's coaches have been able to get him to change enough.

DD

 

The adelman kings ran the princeton offense 43 minutes of the game. In the last 5 minutes it was bibby webber pick and roll. Just look at kings lakers game 5, it was webber bibby pick and roll with webber clearing out derek fisher with bibby hitting the game winner. Those sacramento kings teams didn't just run the princeton offense they ran a lot of pick and rolls which Tracy has been doing here since van gundy.



The element adelman wanted to bring to the team was more ball movement which would make Yao and t-mac less predictable. The problem with Tracy and to a lesser degree Yao is they were so fixed and brain washed on jeff's brand of basketball that they resisted to change which was for the better of the team.


T-mac knows it all doesn't want to move without the ball, doesn't want to set screens, doesn't want to move the ball etc etc etc etc.... T-mac is not thinking about the TEAM game in Tracy's mind everybody just give me the ball and get out of the way.


Tracy is just not use to playing on real team and still with the addition of ron artest, the addition of brent barry and von wafer he still wants to resist and play his style of basketball which is 1 on 5.



Yao on the other hand resisted because he was a servant of jeff vangundy and didn't want to change intially. He and rick both had to compromise and now you see both him and yao balancing out the pros and cons to make the system work.

 

Most of the time Yao plays pretty will with RA’s offense. By now Adelman realizes that Yao is not going to shoot at a high percentage from the high post. While this limits what can be done in Adelman’s system, Adelman has done a good job working around this deficiency.

Tracy, on the other hand, has been asked to do things that he has never done before. He has pretty much played within a system, throughout his career, which fits his style. Now he is required to move without the ball, set picks, and make quick passes without dominating the ball. When he doesn’t do the things that are necessary in Adelmans’s offense, the offense bogs down. Now take into consideration that he is older, slower, and injured. At this stage in his career, he will not be able to consistently fit in with this offense. That means that he will constantly go back to his own style. This is a huge problem, because you cannot have two players that are limited to what they can do in a specific offense. You cannot run Adelman’s motion offense at 60%, it wont be efficient. This is why everyone stands around when Yao and Tracy are on the floor at the same time.

 

I do believe that TMac has tried to play RA's type of basketball but especially this year he is not 100% and it is hard to break his habits of taking charge of a game or impose his will on the games. I don't believe he will be 100% healthly the rest of the season or come playoff time.

 

Maybe because the Rockets have never run the Sacramento offense?
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Hell, Rick Adelman in Portland didn't even use the exact same offense as he did in Sacramento..

The way I see it, he changes his offense to suit the players he has on his teams.
Hence the reason why he is a successful coach and you guys are left flustered at why Yao and T-Mac don't run an offense that he never even implemented..

 

There is one glaring problem I see with RA offense with this team. Getting the ball into Yao. Alston has troubles getting it in to him. This has been going on forever. Bibby could get it in there to him no problems, i bet. Doesn't help either that Yao is fumble fingers. Other than that and late developing picks, they run RA offense fairly well. With Bibby, it would be alot better. And no, I'm not obsessed with Bibby. It's just a fact!

 

If he's getting older and slower then adleman's style fits him perfect right now. His old style was based on his athleticism. Being able to beat guy's off the dribble and shoot the basketball over defenders because of his leaping ability size and quickness combination.



Right now he should be smart enough to realize that this passing moving offense can add a few years to his career espeically if he's slowing down. All he has to do is pass the basketball set screens and just stay active.


He doesn't need to jump over anyone or blow by people off the dribble. All he has to do now is pick and choose his spots and play smart especially considering that he does have passing skills and basketball IQ.

 

I think this thread is somewaht silly. Especially to the comparisons to the Kings are ridiculous at best. The early 2000s Kings never had great wing players, like T-Mac, Artest, or even players who score in the paint, like Brooks, Landry, and Wafer, maybe Bobby Jackson. But, they were filled with shooters.

Also, putting good to dominant low post player in the high post for most of the game has shown to be a failure. Modern example, see Patrick Ewing - 1995-96, New York Knicks, coach Don Nelson. Why would anyone take a great post player out of the post in first place...that's where most good to great centers do their damage? Vlade Divac was a good player and probably a much better passer (than Yao), but he was never as good Yao Ming.

If you put Yao and T-Mac in their prime, and trade them for Divac and Christie. The Kings would've destroyed the Lakers. In fact, the disparities at center and shooting guard would've shrunken so much. That Shaq and Kobe could reasonably be out played by the opposing Kings. While, if the Kings defense plays to caliber of slowing down, everyone else. The Kings could definitely win a series, like that in 6 games.

 

I think that it is going to be harder for Tracy. In order to exploit the opponent’s lazy defender the motion offense requires continuous movement. This requires guards and small forwards to be continuously moving even though they might not be the one shooting the ball. It takes a lot more effort to move without the ball than to just stand around waiting for someone to pass it to you. I don’t think that Tracy has the energy or desire to put that much effort in the offense and then turn around and bring it on the defensive end too. This is why Wafer seems to be a better fit in the offense.

 

Why do TMac and Yao have problems running the RA offense?? Is it because their not the guys for his offense? McGrady is a ballstopper and Rick's offense requires ball movement. Yao shouldn't be playing the high post shooting jumpshots. Stay down low and use his height to his advantage. Jeez i miss JVG This is his team. The players on this team fits him better.

 

Really. This is my observation as well.

 

yao has problems if we run a pure adelman offense; but he's a low post player. you have to play to his strengths and adelman is doing that.

tracy can play adelman's offense and he showed that the past 2 games. it's just that he's so gifted that you have to give him the freedom to go 1-on-1 if he feels he has a match up in his favor.

adelman's offense is only run purely when the 2nd unit is in without our 2 stars b/c they have to run it if they want to do a good job. imagine if brooks or landry or wafer go 1-on-1. they can't. they have to move themselves.

it's like if you watch how the pacers play without granger, or cavs play without lebron... role players move more without their stars. that's just a fact.

 

Yao: Slow, deaf, hesitant
Tmac: Broke knee, hero complex, searching for that elusive groove

 

I get annoyed at the idea that Adelman has an offensive "system" that he wants to run, but cant because of the players we have. Coaches have philosophies not systems. Basketball is too freeflowing to run systems.

Adelman believes in ball movement and body movement, but he runs whatever works. He doesnt just tell the players to run "his" offense. He runs plays to take advantage of his players greatest strengths. Since he got here, the offense has revolved around getting the ball to Yao Ming in the post, and adjusting to however the defense responds to that. When the bench comes in, he tries to put 5 guys on the court who can all create and shoot offense because we dont have a dominant prescense on the floor.

Adelman is a great coach that has been around forever, and he has coached many different types of players throughout his career. What makes him great is how he is able to work with what he has. The main reason for that is because he lets the players make the decisions out there on the court. He doesnt rule them with an iron fist. He observes and adjusts. There is no "system". He just allows players to do what they do best on the court.

 

What we're seeing right now is a far cry of what we were seeing three years ago when T-Mac was on the shelf with his back problems. Three years ago, the Rockets rarely won without T-Mac, now this season, all the talk is they're better without T-Mac since he is too much of a ball stopper in the motion offense.

If T-Mac is traded, what the Rockets need to get in return are players who would really fit in with the motion offense, that is, for as long as Rick Adelman is the Rockets' Head Coach.

 

Easy, because that type of offense requires mental awareness, team play and above all MOTION. Yao and Tmac (more Tmac than Yao) don't like to move. Tmac loves to get the ball and take a jumper, he doesn't want to cut to the basket. Literally if we turned the game into shooting practice he'd be ecstatic. The problem is: you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Give Yao time, he can pick it up because he wants to learn. Tmac, well, he's Tmac. Love him, hate him, it's what he is.

 

You convieniently mentioned all of mcgrady's flaws and failed to point out what he CAN do in the offense. He is a good shooter/ball handler/passer and he has size. ANY offense can use a guy like that.

And despite what everyone says about him, he is probably the best player we have that can get to the basket and score or draw a foul off the dribble.

 

Evan, great post and great analogy. Love the socialism/capitalism comparison, its a fitting one. And you are correct about motion offense being highly used in college (and high school as well) to give a diverse attack and not necessarily rely on "star power."

I think with the NBA, it is a self-perpetuating cycle with the league and its star players. While I haven't really followed basketball enough to understand how the game was played in the 70s, I believe that since Jordan, there has been an ever ongoing search for "the next Jordan." The league knows it and encourages it (thus the constant pimping of LBJ, Wade, Kobe). The fans love transcendent performances - it is storybook greatness demonstrated in real life.

I am convinced that the shared offense, distributed approach is a generally superior approach, or at least in theory (just like communism). Again, a lot of it has to do with who your personnel actually are. If you have a consistent star performer, you can ride them quite far. However, I'd still argue that teams like San Antonio inarguably have their star performers, but more than that, have built their success off of buying into the system and the team approach.

Just to play with the analogy a bit further, just as socialism in its most extreme form more or less collapsed, and capitalism has been the dominant system, there has been a clear cut "winner" in terms of which system works better.

But, free market capitalism, the bedrock of our country, within the last two years has shown its cracks, and now people who were once convinced of its superiority are realizing the need for more government regulation and intervention, i.e. socialistic approaches are not wrong and evil by default.

The star-power mentality has taken deep roots in the league and in the minds of the fans, but that kind of outlook ignores and overlooks team dynamics, and forgets that sometimes, the sum total is greater than its individual parts. Moreover, team dynamics are things that should be constantly coached and taught, but it can be hard hear the message when you're the star player and you've been told that your entire career.