See ball. Move ball. Quickly.
Those instructions, elementary as they may be, are emanating from the mouths of NBA coaches more than ever these days - evidence of a revolution that has taken the league by storm. It's a movement that is taking the pro game from traditional structured offenses and into more instinctive, intuitive styles.With the understanding that nothing is truly new under the sun, today's coaches are borrowing and stealing from each other at epidemic rate. But instead of borrowing a low-post offense based upon the talents of a 7-foot center, they are grabbing on to the virtues of a more equal-opportunity scheme that is inherently more difficult to scout and defend.
"I think the game of basketball is changing. There's no question that in the last three or four years there's been tremendous, I think, personality change on how to be successful in this game," said Seattle coach George Karl, who is doing wonders with a SuperSonic team that turned stagnant under the half-court leanings of K.C. Jones.
"Coaches are doing a great job studying the game, and figuring it out. And it will be interesting to see where it stabilizes. It will be interesting to see if some coach or some team develops something that everybody else will copy."
What everyone wants to copy most of all is the success of the Chicago Bulls, who have won two straight NBA titles. Thus, today's most important players are those versatile enough to play multiple positions on the floor, who can slash and drive to the basket, and who are able to think on the court well enough to react to whatever situation arises.
The epitome of that type of player, of course, is 6-foot-6 Michael Jordan, and 6-7 teammate Scottie Pippen is in the same mold. But there are plenty of others around the league - guys like Chris Mullin, Shawn Kemp and Larry Johnson - for a coach to hitch his wagon to and ride, rather than wait that endless wait for another Jordan to arrive in his town.
The upshot is that motion and passing games are in.
"It's definitely a trend," said Laker forward James Worthy. "It's been around for a long time - they've done it in Denver for years - but nobody thought about it much until Don Nelson began to have some success with it with his small teams.
"Now people are beginning to believe in it."
Schools of thought, and offshoots of particular schools, are popping up all over the league, all preaching different strains of the passing game and permutations thereof.
Larry Brown of the Clippers taught Philadelphia's Doug Moe the motion offense years ago, and Moe refined it to high art in his years in Denver, and is hoping to do the same now in Philadelphia. Moe disciples Allan Bristow of Charlotte and Dan Issel of Denver are spreading the word.
"I think what it does is it enables players to use their natural abilities," Issel said of the passing game. "There are guidelines, yes, and there are certain things that you don't want players to do, but basically it's a free-lance offense so if you've got a player who is a great 15-foot jump shooter, those are the shots he'll get in the passing game. If you have a player whose biggest asset is taking the ball to the hoop, he can do that in the passing game.
"Once the players get used to one another and they know the tendencies of their teammates, they can act and react to that. I think it's the best offense to play."
First-year coach, Randy Pfund of the Lakers, believes in something he nebulously has termed a " `90's style."
"Nineties-style basketball is going to be a more instinctive game, less play calls. Guys are going to have more options," said Pfund, who's got his hands full trying to wean the Lakers off an offense built a decade ago around the unique talents of Magic Johnson. "You have to be more versatile, have guys play multiple positions. It's a similar style (to the Bulls), but I think that's still a fairly patterned style of play.
"I think there's a misnomer in this league that the only teams that can move the ball are teams that have motion offenses or passing games. I'm out to prove that that's not necessarily the case," Pfund said. "You can be a team that moves the ball quick, and move it. Keep the ball moving."
Nobody does that better than Phil Jackson's Bulls, who have virtually perfected Tex Winter's triple-post offense - which, by the way, is a system developed more than 30 years ago.
Technically, the triple-post is a patterned offense, as opposed to passing game, because the players' positions on the floor and the cuts they make are predetermined. But the Sonics' Karl terms Chicago's system "structured freedom" because of the latitude given Jordan and Pippen to improvise.
"They have a lot of reads," Karl said, "but when it doesn't work, they give the ball to Michael."