BetterBasketball's "Read and React Offense"™
There are a lot of offenses to choose from... Motion, Princeton, Triangle, UCLA High-Post, Flex, Swing, Dribble-Drive Motion offense (DDM), and others. I'm stepping out on a limb here and will make a prediction... the offense of the near future, will be Rick Torbett's "Read and React" Offense™. Many are already familiar with Coach Torbett of BetterBasketball.com, and the many excellent instructional DVD's that he has helped produce. Coach Torbett has used the knowledge and experience he has gained in years of coaching and teaching players in developing the "Read and React"™ offense.
Rather than learning set plays, this offense teaches players to "play the game" at all levels, starting at the youth level. It develops in a series of "layers", each layer building on the previous. The first one or two layers could comprise a youth team's entire offense. High school teams will add more layers, and college and pro teams will use them all. So it is a "system" of progression that can be as simple or as detailed as you want it to be. It can also be run against both man-to-man and zone defenses, allowing you to get really good at this offense, without having to learn separate zone offenses and plays. Higher level teams will learn the offense through the same progression used by youth teams, but can advance from one layer to another at a faster pace... depending on your team and practice time, you may have the whole thing in after several weeks. And then you can continue to practice it all season, making you a much better team by tournament time.
Perhaps most importantly, the "Read and React"™ can be used as a system of development, something badly needed in this country, and something that no other offense has ever attempted to do. Kids are taught beginning as early as 5th grade, with additional layers added each year throughout their development. This system provides tremendous continuity amongst players and coaches throughout the entire program. To me, this system of teaching basketball, and other aspects of the "Read and React"™ make it so powerful, that it's not just the "next hot" offense, it's something more, something bigger, and greatly needed.
Numerous simple break-down drills are presented. These drills provide the foundation for teaching each layer of the offense. Players are taught to react, without having to think about what to do... everything is drilled and becomes a "habit" before moving to the next layer of development. Just as we have many breakdown drills for teaching team man-to-man defense, the read and react offense is taught by it's own breakdown drills. And coaches that have been using the read and react offense claim that it makes their defense better by having to defend against this offense in practice.
Using a series of simple rules, players react to what the ball-handler does. These rules are drilled and become automatic... a habit. The ball-handler has the freedom to do whatever he/she thinks is best, and has a number of options. The four other players will react to his/her action with one specific correct reaction. Rules are given for perimeter rotation, dribble-penetration, baseline drive, east-west (lateral) dribble, pass and cut, post player movement, hand-offs, back-screens, cuts after passing into the post, staggered screens, attacking the helpside and zones. Now this may sound like there are a lot of rules, but in reality, there are not many, as each of the options above employ the same basic rules... you'll have to get the DVD's to understand what I mean!
The offense is very flexible and it can easily change to and from a "5-out" set to a "4-out, 1-in" set to a "3-out, 2-in" set, or a 1-4 high set... sometimes even in the same possession! You can use it as an up-tempo, quick attack offense, or as a slow, deliberate offense, and you can even use it as your delay offense by simply stipulating lay-ups only. And you can even start it in transition. You can still run set plays (if you feel the need), but when the play fails, your players fall back to the "Read and React"™ rules.
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This is a 6-DVD set, and like all BetterBasketball DVD's, is excellent and professional in its instruction and quality.
- DVD #1. The first DVD lays the foundation, explaining the basic concepts of the "Read and React"™ offense and the system of progression.
- DVD #2. The second presents the "guts" of the offense, with all 17 layers of development.
- DVD #3. The third provides all the excellent break-down drills needed in teaching each layer of the offense.
- DVD #4. The fourth discusses ways you can "tweak" or modify the offense to suit your personnel... ways in which other coaches have made minor adjustments to the Read and React Offense™ that have resulted in the offense taking on a completely different form. It can function like the UCLA High Post, The Triangle, A Dribble Penetration Offense, a 5-Out offense geared to dribble penetration and perimeter shooting, a 4-Out offense geared to pounding the ball inside, or a 3-out set to use big men exclusively as screeners, among others.
- DVD #5. The fifth DVD lets you gain from the experience of coaches who are already using this offense for their teams and throughout their programs... their comments and suggestions.
- DVD #6. The sixth DVD is a series of interviews with some of the game's most respected coaches (Bill Self, Kansas University-Men; Andy Landers, University of Georgia-Women; Hall of Fame Players Nancy Lieberman and Rick Barry; Rick Duckett, the new coach at Grambling-Men; and Jim Davis, retired women's coach from Clemson University). You'll hear their positive comments about the offense, their suggestions and "pearls" of wisdom.
You can learn more by reading a couple articles posted by Coach Torbett, as well as viewing some sample video, on the Betterbasketball web-site.
Price: $169.95
