Pro/rel needed :p

It's a perfect storm. Vic Metro coach is Melb Tigers junior coaching director and most of the kids know the system he runs inside and out.

6 of the players are Melb Tigers juniors, with Karabatos (a 7th) a Tigers junior until top age U16's. (Jock Perry who is missing with injury is another Tigers junior). The other 3 kids are the Vic Metro bigs and from all accounts are really coachable. The learning curve to run the system and know where team mates are was small with most of the kids knowing how to execute. They know how to read and react to different defences in the system really well.

That said they aren't really tall with Jock Perry being injured so it would be interesting to see if they played NSW Metro with Humpries and Gal and have them zone all game.

Also, Vic Metro does have some really good talent with Tom Wilson a chance to be a great Guard/Wing if AFL doesn't take him, Dejan is a solid scoring PG and Abi is a smart and strong forward.

I've been really impressed by Abi. Doesn't force anything, and doesn't need his number called because he creates his own opportunities in broken play or off the glass. Not to say there aren't better players around, but he's good to watch.

What club is Abi from ? I think he is at the COE now

Yes he is and diamond valley

Have a sneaky feeling NSW Metro or Vic Country may have a say in that!

Anonymous 310...just making it up as he goes along. NSW Metro?

470212...thanks for your post, i found it quite intereseting....the shuffle vs read and react offence is a discussion i have often had with friends regarding which is best suited for juniors. Going off your post, I presume that the tigers run the read and react through their whole junior program now?

Back in the day their NBL team won a number of flags with the old shuffle. I personally prefer read and react for juniors as it actually teaches kids how to actually play the game

Sorry to derail this thread, but the above post grabbed my attention. !

Tigers still run shuffle as is majority of the Vic Metro plays. The difference between someone who has watched a coaching video of shuffle and teaches it likes witches hats standing around Vs someone who can explain how to react when it breaks down is the biggest difference in coaching.

Against shuffle, a lot of coaching try and double team the wings, play off the big man in the paint or deny the pass to the wings trying to stop the play OR play a zone. But when you have experienced players with the system they know when to backdoor cut on overplaying, circle the ball with dribble hand off's, slip on screens when the man is sagging or run special plays where the big man is first cutter or switching forwards/guards as shooters, etc, etc. The offence is still highly structured and not like the Kentucky Dribble Drive offence, but to execute it against changing defences requires the players to read what the defence is giving them. And having had 6-7 players run it for 5 or 6 years since they were 11 and 12 years old is very different to picking a team and teaching them a system for 3 months.

That said, the players in the team deserve to be there based on their ability not just because they know the system. This age group Tigers team has challenged Diamond Valley and Blackburn since U12's and has always made the VC finals because they are good players. Just helps when they are all on the same page and that the State Champs isn't an All Star weekend.

Shuffle is not read and react because the screening actions are always the same based on ball movement. Players can make reads coming off the screen, sure, but once they pass the ball the options are limited. True read and react gives players lots of options. They can cut/ds/cross screen/onball/postup from a pass. Dont fall urselves vic met coaches. Ur robot development doesnt help anyone but urselves and ur egos.

Still got to react to the screening action and read how the defender plays you...

read and react is bs...it's calipari ball for ballers.

Read and react ..... Why not just call it Zoo ball.

It doesn't teach kids to play, it tells kids what you should do when something happens defensively or your team mate executes a drive.

What happens when your players are not skilled in reading this and the ball movement stops ??? It is too much dribble, limited passing to open players until " I've got mine "

Last time I looked, an offense consisted of cutting, screening , spacing and ball movement. Mmmm sounds like Shuffle just might have those qualities.

Shuffle haters a like other haters, ignorant of the system and the opportunities it creates.

Didn't hurt Gaze, Bradke, Exum, Duncan,.

The people who call motion offence zoo ball are just the ones that don't understand it.

The shuffle is a pattern offense, period! No other way of describing it.

If motion offence is really that zoo ball, why does EVERY single NBA team base their entire offences on it. Motion offences is how you read your defender to every single circumstance, unlimited options in what you can do. (Not i'll pass to wing, then UCLA cut and go weakside etc.)

Every offence has its perks and downsides (eg. Motion takes a long time to team the concept, shuffle and its predictability).

But at the end of the day, if the kids have learnt how to makes reads of their defender on the fly, they can play in any system in the world, and they're the kids who really know 'how to play'. And not simplly 'run an offence'.

So if the shuffle is so great who is the last player since Gaze to play fit Australia to come out if Melbourne Tigers???

Considering how many great teams they have had at junior level, the shuffle hasnt produced any good players. Just turned good potential players into Robots.

And btw, Bradtke only played the shuffle at senior level.

If Shuffle is so bad and robotic, then why did Lucas from SA ( Head coach junior national team ) adopt it and make two GF's with Townsville

Is he a bad coach ?

Because there is a difference between winning at senior level and developing at junior level.

Shuffle is good for results at senior level. But doesn't help players improve at junior level.

There is some fact to this argument because kids were selected not only because they were decent players but because they knew the shuffle offence.

maybe more so because they knew the offence in some cases interestingly enough.

It doesn't really matter what offence you want to use, Shuffle, Princeton, Motion, Triangle, Double-Drive, High-Low, UCLA, Wisconsin Swing, Flex etc, etc as long as the coach at the junior level knows how to explain it to their team and teach good basketball fundamentals. Saying one doesn't work at all or develop good players or skills is ridiculous and out of shuffle saying that only 3 players score is crazy.

The worst thing for juniors is to have bad coaches or those that want to jump on flavour of the month trends. As long as they run a system that teaches players to pass, cut, screen, drive, shoot, play defence and hopefully win is more important than making them hard core fans of one system.

Tom Wilson, Dj Vasiljivic, Abi Akintola, Mathew Owies all play different positions in the Vic Metro Shuffle offense,

All contributed as did the bench players and all played different roles. How did this offense stunt players ability to learn and play the game and win a National Championship. Lemanis talks of Tom Wilson as a future pt guard at Boomers level

If coaches can teach fundamentals then players develop.

To say only certain players benefit is uninformed. It just gives you control over what shot is take. By whom at any certain time rather than have the wrong guy take the wrong shot from the wrong position as in Triangle , etc

+1 for mike F, teach juniors to play first, agree very much. Relating that to under 18 Nationals however, no problems with what Vic metro are doing, they are just doing it a little better than the rest.