Style matters to NBA teams, players

By RONALD TILLERY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
When Hubie Brown arrived in Memphis on Nov. 13, 2002 the seasoned coach with a raspy voice delivered a clear and succinct summation about the team he stood to inherit.

The Grizzlies - infamously 0-8 at the time - had no style.

Brown's first order of business was to define how they would play.

So the young Griz raced up and down the court, hoisted 3-pointers, gambled defensively to create steals and ignite the fast-paced offense.

Now, four years beyond Brown's arrival and three playoff appearances later, including two postseason runs guided by current head coach Mike Fratello, style of play somehow has emerged as a hot-button issue again.

Many fans didn't like how the Grizzlies played the past two seasons.

Players and management were lukewarm to it.

Coaches defended it.

There is no question, though, that it will change.

The reason?

Simple.

The NBA is a copycat league.

Whatever works for a winner tends to become a fan favorite and get mimicked by several franchises. Look at the past decade-and-a-half of professional basketball.

When the Detroit Pistons bullied their way to back-to-back championships in 1989 and 1990, other teams attempted to copy their model. Those Pistons watched the shot clock wind down and played a bruising game rooted in intimidation.

Then came the Chicago Bulls dynasty and their Triangle Offense -- predicated on floor spacing, crisp passing and forming a two-man game. Others tried the triangle and failed miserably.

Now all eyes are on the Phoenix Suns, who figured that today's teams play too much defense and not enough transition offense. The Suns then stocked-piled athletes, got a fleet-footed point guard with a high basketball IQ and sped up the game.

"It's similar to what Don Nelson did back with the Warriors when he had Tim Hardaway and (Chris) Mullin," Fratello said. "It was different. It was effective. It won games and started to change people's thought process.

"You put a style in that you think will be successful and you adjust accordingly. You don't change something for the sake of change unless something has been so horrendous that the culture needs to change. Our culture here was good. They understood defending was important. They understood that sharing the basketball was important. We'll do some things differently. But we also changed the personnel that will allow us to do that."

There is little doubt that the NBA was stagnant until the Suns' revival. Most teams run the same plays. The Suns just won't do that.

"They've gotten most of the league going, 'How do you stop this?' And some of the league saying, 'Can we play like this?'" Denver Nuggets coach George Karl said.

The problem with the Phoenix model for most teams is the same as the one for those that tried to replicate the Pistons' Bad Boy squad, and the Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen-led Bulls.

Few teams equipped to play the Suns' pedal-to-the-metal basketball.

But many will try.

Playing a faster-paced offense sounds like a good idea to most NBA players. There's no standing around. Fast-break basketball promotes constant movement. But there is a good reason why the Fratello Grizzlies looked different than the Hubie Brown version.

Brown used more players - in shorter stretches - to keep fresh bodies on the court.

"When the rotation changed, the style came down a little bit because we couldn't play the frenetic pace Hubie wanted," swingman Mike Miller said. "He ran the same type of ship defensively. Offensively, he wanted execution, too. But there's no question that the style of play that's the most fun to watch is the up-and-down. If you watch the Phoenix Suns, they're fun to watch."

What the Suns are doing isn't revolutionary. As recently as the 1984-85 season, every team in the NBA averaged at least 100 points per game. The NBA became "unwatchable" to some because coaches became control freaks, insisting that a point guard walk slowly up the court as he calls out a play.

With more of an emphasis placed on defense came less freedom on offense.

"For a period of time the game was boring," Suns president Jerry Colangelo said. "With all due respect to teams who were good in the halfcourt game, it was a matter of coaches overcoaching rather than letting the players play.

"This is the way the game is meant to be played. I've always been a proponent of fast-break basketball. That's what fans want to see."

Many NBA teams want to play like San Antonio and Miami - winners of three of the past four NBA Finals. Those team function with a superstar post player, quality defense, good offensive ball movement and fundamental play.

"Pat Riley took (James) Posey and Jason (Williams) not just on a whim," Fratello said. "He knew that gave him two more guys to surround the 3-point line. (Antoine) Walker surrounds the 3-point line. They move the ball into Shaquille O'Neal and then they make you pay. So he went out and got guys who could make 3s.

"Sometimes we tend to look at teams and think you can do what they're doing. But the players aren't the same. You have to look at the personnel before you can decide how you're going to play."

Since other teams aren't as talented as San Antonio, Miami and Dallas, coaches are constantly configuring a style of play that gives their team the best chance to win.

"One of the things that we've begun to see is coaches deciding to play what looks like their five best players almost without regard to position," NBA commissioner David Stern said. "These are just observations of a fan, and so we're seeing a lot more ball movement. ... And now we're seeing teams draft for multi-talented players over time, leaving aside size in the middle."

Nelson has long brought an unconventional style that confuses opponents. Odd coaching strategies have taken mediocre teams and turned them into overachievers.

Look at what's going on today with Golden State under Nelson. Troy Murphy is the team's center and Mike Dunleavy is the power forward even though both players lack presence in the post.

Incidentally, a closer look at how the Mavericks became an NBA Finalist reveals that it wasn't necessarily a giant step forward defensively. The Mavs averaged more than four possessions a game fewer than the 2004-05 season, meaning they used a slower pace offensively.

The Mavs' actually played one-on-one, isolation basketball better than anybody else in the league because of personnel - Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse, Josh Howard and Dirk Nowitzki.

"You just can't be married to one thing," Grizzlies guard Eddie Jones said. "Chicago ran the triangle. But they ran when they could and they won games because they controlled the tempo. The Showtime Lakers ran but were smart enough to play off Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) in the playoffs.

"If there's an opportunity to run, yeah, I know we're going to do that. But if we force the issue, we'll have so many turnovers that teams will run up and down the floor on us."

To borrow a phrase from the legal mind of the late Johnnie Cochran: If a team's style doesn't fit a coach must acquit his players.

That's another way of saying a style that often goes unheralded is adaptation.

The gimmicky style of play that Nelson uses only gets his teams so far. He's never coached in the NBA Finals. The recently popular run-and-gun Phoenix Suns haven't made it there, either.

It's not a matter of style over substance.

Or is it?

"I know everybody wants to change the style to be exciting and score a lot of points," Jones said. "I think you have to win the best way you know how. Winning is the style I favor the most."