Larry Brown Calls For One Set of Rules

[George O'Brien]

Detroit Free Press: BASKETBALL: Brown on defensive, calls for U.S. trials

August 14, 2004

BY JEMELE HILL
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER

ATHENS, Greece -- Larry Brown saw Friday that his U.S. basketball team faces plenty of skepticism in Greece.

The venue and backdrop were different, but reporters at the Olympics had the same questions as the U.S. journalists who have criticized his team for its vulnerability. Is America no longer the favorite, in light of its ugly exhibition loss to Italy and its struggles with other opponents on its pre-Olympic tour? Is this collection of young NBA stars even capable of playing the team game necessary to win in the Olympics? Has the rest of the world improved that much?


"Everybody is catching up," said Brown, whose team begins play Sunday against Puerto Rico. "This is the youngest team we've ever sent with pro athletes, with the least number of days to prepare. This is probably the most difficult task we have."


Team USA lacks size, a pure shooter and a true point guard. Although Brown said he had full confidence in his players, he called for a change in the selection process.


"We can't continue to do this, in my mind, without a trial, where players try out for the right to play on this team," said Brown, who won gold as a player in 1964 in Tokyo. "I think that's vital to us."

Brown, who took the Pistons to the NBA title two months ago, also said he would like to see one set of basketball rules for the entire world. The American men have had trouble adjusting to international rules -- the shorter game clock, wider lane, closer three-point line and smaller court.

"We can't continue to do this with a different set of rules," Brown said. "I would hope that some day we have one set of basketball rules for everybody. Take the best of international rules, the best of the NBA and move forward. I think that's really important for our sport."

Although his team has obvious deficiencies, Brown is troubled by assertions that American fans are rooting for Team USA to lose.

"These guys gave up a lot to come to play," he said. "And everybody in America, if they're not proud of the commitment these guys made, they don't have the message. It's not their fault they were selected. It's our job to get everybody ready to play. We have to do the best job with the people we have."

 

[George O'Brien]

Here's my first cut on what I would like in an intigrated set of rules:

From International:

Wider lane
Permit zones (no defensive 3 second calls)
Tighter calls on travelling
Coaches call time-outs
No offensive goal tending call if on the rim

From NBA:

More distant 3 point line
12 minute quarters
3 officials
Need both feet out of bounds when taking the ball out after made basket
Inner circle for defining where charges versus blocking calls made
No clearing out with opposite arm
Six fouls

 

[elindholm]

Pretty good lists, but I disagree with you on the offensive interference/tip-in preference. I think the international rule is really cheap. A very effective strategy could be to station a giant with good hands (say Yao) very close to the rim on offense, then instruct him to catch and jam home every shot he can get his hands on. Offensive players wouldn't have to hit the basket; they'd just have to find their teammate. It would be like lob passes gone completely overboard -- at least now, with a lob pass, the receiver can't be hovering immediately over the basket when he catches it.

 

[Chaz]

"We can't continue to do this, in my mind, without a trial, where players try out for the right to play on this team," said Brown, who won gold as a player in 1964 in Tokyo. "I think that's vital to us."


Absolutely, I have been saying this since they lost in the Word Championship 2 years ago. I am glad to see someone like Larry Brown saying this in the press.

 

[George O'Brien]

Pretty good lists, but I disagree with you on the offensive interference/tip-in preference. I think the international rule is really cheap. A very effective strategy could be to station a giant with good hands (say Yao) very close to the rim on offense, then instruct him to catch and jam home every shot he can get his hands on. Offensive players wouldn't have to hit the basket; they'd just have to find their teammate. It would be like lob passes gone completely overboard -- at least now, with a lob pass, the receiver can't be hovering immediately over the basket when he catches it.

LOL, I am visualizing guys "hovering" over the basket.

 

[Joe Mama]

Here's my first cut on what I would like in an intigrated set of rules:

From International:

Wider lane
Permit zones (no defensive 3 second calls)
Tighter calls on travelling
Coaches call time-outs
No offensive goal tending call if on the rim

From NBA:

More distant 3 point line
12 minute quarters
3 officials
Need both feet out of bounds when taking the ball out after made basket
Inner circle for defining where charges versus blocking calls made
No clearing out with opposite arm
Six fouls

I'm with you on the tighter calls on traveling, but otherwise the only other rule I would want from international play is the wider lane. I like watching the shooting and ball movement of international play. However I hate watching basketball where true zone defenses are allowed. With the size in the NBA it would kill a players' ability to drive to the basket.

Joe Mama

 

[Lars the Red]

Lose the offensive goal tending for now. It's not really that big of a factor in the game, but you could see someone become kind of the Designated Hitter in basketball, camping and swatting. Lose the inner circle too. You still can't slide under a guy that's already in the air, but don't reward players who can't hit a pull up jumper by bailing him out with a blocking call.

I don't agree that the zone wouldn't work in the US. For those of you that haven't noticed, the International players have been getting much taller than the Americans lately and the zones don't seem to hurt their motion games. Hit the outside shots and the lane opens up. Driving all the way to the basket is way over-rated in my book anyway.

 

[Joe Mama]

Lose the inner circle too. You still can't slide under a guy that's already in the air, but don't reward players who can't hit a pull up jumper by bailing him out with a blocking call.

The inner circle doesn't reward the guy driving to the basket. It rewards bad defense and blocking because the referees focus too much on the circle and not whether the defender was really set for a charge. Frankly if there is one thing that should be changed in both the NBA and international play it's the way they allow people to get hammered and manhandled around the basket. At least the international officials try. They just ignore the contact against big guys like Tim Duncan while calling every little touch foul against penetrating guards.

I don't agree that the zone wouldn't work in the US. For those of you that haven't noticed, the International players have been getting much taller than the Americans lately and the zones don't seem to hurt their motion games. Hit the outside shots and the lane opens up. Driving all the way to the basket is way over-rated in my book anyway.

IMO the current defensive rules have gone far enough. They should be enough to persuade teams that outside shooting is important.

Joe Mama

 

[Lars the Red]

The inner circle doesn't reward the guy driving to the basket. It rewards bad defense and blocking because the referees focus too much on the circle and not whether the defender was really set for a charge. Frankly if there is one thing that should be changed in both the NBA and international play it's the way they allow people to get hammered and manhandled around the basket. At least the international officials try. They just ignore the contact against big guys like Tim Duncan while calling every little touch foul against penetrating guards.

Of course it rewards them. Face it, most of the guys that make their living slashing to the hole can't pull up and hit a jumper. If you take the defenses ability to protect the basket with their bodies and not by blocking shots, you reward guys that can't shoot. It's basically the same as giving the automatic two shots from the foul line after the bonus. Your rewarding guys that can't make foul shots.

IMO the current defensive rules have gone far enough. They should be enough to persuade teams that outside shooting is important.

Joe Mama

The current rules have little or no similarity to a zone defense. Your seeing a fine example of that this Olympics. There isn't a team in the league that plays a zone for more than a possession or two. Why? Because it really isn't a zone and it does little to change the flow of the offense.

 

[Joe Mama]

Of course it rewards them. Face it, most of the guys that make their living slashing to the hole can't pull up and hit a jumper. If you take the defenses ability to protect the basket with their bodies and not by blocking shots, you reward guys that can't shoot. It's basically the same as giving the automatic two shots from the foul line after the bonus. Your rewarding guys that can't make foul shots.

How in the world does that circle take away the defender's ability to protect the basket? Standing under the basket trying to draw charges is not good defense. People want to see NBA players going strong to the basket. If you are allowing the defenders to stand underneath it to draw charges it takes away with the people want to see. More importantly it's dangerous.

Like I said before the problem with the circle isn't that it helps guys who can't shoot. The problem is that it makes the referees lazy with their charging calls. Too often they just look to see where the players feed or instead of making sure the defender was really set with good defensive position before the offensive player got to the spot.

The current rules have little or no similarity to a zone defense. Your seeing a fine example of that this Olympics. There isn't a team in the league that plays a zone for more than a possession or two. Why? Because it really isn't a zone and it does little to change the flow of the offense.

you must be joking. If you honestly believe that you haven't watched the Phoenix Suns over the last two years. They always struggled against zone defenses. In fact they were really only a few teams in the NBA that didn't struggle against zone defenses. Next you are going to ask why we didn't seem more zone defenses if that is true. I can't answer that question. If I was an NBA coach there are only a handful of teams I would play man-to-man more than zone.

The only difference in the rules is that the defender must clear out of the lane every three seconds. First of all, most of the time they can get away without doing it as long as they don't just campout in the lane for the entire possession. Secondly for most of the guys down low that is one big step. An NBA team might not be able to run a zone defense in its truest form, but it can be done close enough.

When did the NBA first implement the old illegal defense rules anyhow?

Joe Mama

 

[Errntknght]

As far as I'm aware the NBA has never allowed zone defenses... they were certainly outlawed by 1954, when I started watching, and it wasn't talked about as a new thing. Originally there weren't any rules - refs called an illegal defense whenever they judged a team was playing a zone. It was rarely called... much less frequently than 'Defense 3' calls are made now. It seems strange to us now but in the early days teams seemed to try to adhere to the spirit of the 'no-zone' rule.

The first step in changing this was coaches using more and more zone tactics. The league reacted by giving the refs some guidelines to use in stopping some of those practices. Eventually, those guidelines became known to announcers who would give some rendition of them when the call was made - and it became much more frequently called. Naturally, the coaches had some idea what they were but, in general, confusion was wide spread.

I think it must have been around the late 70's when the league made illegal defense formal rules - probably because the coaches wanted to know what they were for sure so they could utilize everything on defense that wasn't disallowed and use them to advantage on offense when they could, as well. It coincided with lawyers getting involved in the league and, naturally, being lawyers they relished complicated rules. The spirit of trying to play pure 'man' defense was long since dead. IIRC, that is the same time frame we first saw the disease of 'flopping' appear. (IMO, something the league should have stomped on quick and hard.)

The actual rules changed frequently and offenses started utilizing maneuvers that 'exposed' illegal defenses, which eventually led to a short period of time (happily, short) when there were position rules for offense as well as defense. Around 1990 the rules became pretty stable and that's when coaches began to use them to facilitate the ugly isolation plays.

BTW, this is all from my memory so I've probably got a few things wrong.

 

[Errntknght]

My theory as to why the we didn't see more zone D's against the Suns at the season wound down is that we were in the cellar of the West and so the opposing coaches didn't give much thought as to how they should stop us... we certainly weren't competing with them for a playoff spot. I'm sure, if we are in contention for the playoffs next year, we'll see zones until we show we can deal with them.

 

[Lars the Red]

How in the world does that circle take away the defender's ability to protect the basket? Standing under the basket trying to draw charges is not good defense. People want to see NBA players going strong to the basket. If you are allowing the defenders to stand underneath it to draw charges it takes away with the people want to see. More importantly it's dangerous.

Joe, have you ever stood out on the court in that circle? It's not like your head is in the net, and the call is made if you have even one of your feet back in it. And if you want to see guys drive to the basket, hit a couple of pull ups in a row and watch how the defenders magically come away from the basket. Don't always use the lazy way to make the game flashier. It's a great game without artificially trying to enhance it.

Like I said before the problem with the circle isn't that it helps guys who can't shoot. The problem is that it makes the referees lazy with their charging calls. Too often they just look to see where the players feed or instead of making sure the defender was really set with good defensive position before the offensive player got to the spot.

It is a tool that makes refs lazy. They don't even make an attempt to make a judgement call. If you have a foot in the circle, it's a block.

you must be joking. If you honestly believe that you haven't watched the Phoenix Suns over the last two years. They always struggled against zone defenses. In fact they were really only a few teams in the NBA that didn't struggle against zone defenses. Next you are going to ask why we didn't seem more zone defenses if that is true. I can't answer that question. If I was an NBA coach there are only a handful of teams I would play man-to-man more than zone.

Sorry, Joe, that's just not the case. What your calling a zone is little more than a man defense that slides the help more frequently. A pure zone would look like what we are seeing in the Olympics. The teams don't use the NBA version much because you don't get enough advantage using it because the defensive 3 second call takes the teeth out of it.

The only difference in the rules is that the defender must clear out of the lane every three seconds. First of all, most of the time they can get away without doing it as long as they don't just campout in the lane for the entire possession. Secondly for most of the guys down low that is one big step. An NBA team might not be able to run a zone defense in its truest form, but it can be done close enough.

Sorry, I don't see it that way and if you listen to the NBA coaches and players, they say the same thing, 'It doesn't give you enough change of pace to justify using it'. The offenses also do about the same thing they used to with the 'Illegal defense' call. You position players just so, and wait for the ref to make the call. Boring. I'll take the chess match that the college or international game offer anyday, the offensive and defensive adjustments of shooters or inside players, defenders or scorers. That's what makes for great basketball, not glorious dunks.

 

[Chaz]

Lars, mostly I agree with you but the NBA does play a zone. It may not be a "pure" zone like the college teams play but it is a brand of zone defense.

Maybe it doesn't fit your definition but I don't know what you call it if it is not called a zone.

 

[Lars the Red]

Lars, mostly I agree with you but the NBA does play a zone. It may not be a "pure" zone like the college teams play but it is a brand of zone defense.

Maybe it doesn't fit your definition but I don't know what you call it if it is not called a zone.

I guess it's the fact that there are rules that prohibit where and how long a player can be in an area of the court that makes me not see it as a zone. Hell, I could care less if we suddenly see 5 guys camped around Shaq and his team mates are suddenly force to hit jumpers. Hit the shots and the defense changes. Clank'em, and plan on seeing it the rest of the night.

 

[Chaz]

I guess it's the fact that there are rules that prohibit where and how long a player can be in an area of the court that makes me not see it as a zone. Hell, I could care less if we suddenly see 5 guys camped around Shaq and his team mates are suddenly force to hit jumpers. Hit the shots and the defense changes. Clank'em, and plan on seeing it the rest of the night.

I guess my only point is there are all different kinds of zone defense. The variety played in the NBA may not be a "pure" zone and it may be limited by specific rules but it is a variety of zone and a step in the right direction for the NBA.

Sure beats no zone of any kind if you ask me.