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Describing A Perfect Offensive Team
The National Basketball Association Finals 2009 is one of the best showcases of offensive firepower that the world has seen in a long time. Not since the Lakers-Celtics rivalry of Magic and Bird have two offensively superior teams been pitted against each other, exchanging baskets and runs all throughout the ballgame.
Different coaches and different players have varying answers on what kind of offense they would like to play in. Steve Nash, for example, and most of the Phoenix suns like a fast paced style, that is up and down the court with very little half court sets. Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs however, prefer to slow it down and set things up, to call out and execute plays.
Perhaps a question on every basketball fan and players mind is: what kind of team/s is/are the most complete offensively? Of course the answer to that question would depend on so many factors such as players, coaches, team record, and the list goes on. However, a theoretically "perfect" offensive team would be the current roster of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Los Angeles has a player who can create for himself, and for his teammates in Kobe Bryant. They have legitimate inside threats in Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, and Andrew Bynum. They have outside shooters in Trevor Ariza, Derek Fisher, Shannon Brown, and Jordan Farmar. Aside from the aforementioned threats, Bryant, Gasol, Odom, Ariza, Brown, and Farmar all can shoot from mid-range and drive as well. Aside from the point guards, they have an extra facilitator in Luke Walton. It is surely effortless to see how this special mix of players adds up to a potent offense.
Play the Lakers man-to-man, and Kobe Bryant, and Trevor Ariza can just score by themselves. Use the zone defense on them, and LA has enough shooters to cause havoc on the offensive end. Want a fast paced game? Then the lineup of Farmar, Bryant, Ariza, Walton, and Odom can run with you at any speed. If teams try to set up their offense, it gets worse: Fisher, Bryant, Ariza, Gasol and Bynum, all defensive specialists, will be allowed to set up in their backcourt, all looking to gain possession or get stops.
Just the lineup of the Lakers on paper is daunting. They have the perfect combination of size, strength, skill, experience, and potential. They have a very young core that can easily compete for championships for years to come. Their top two or three scorers can have bad games, and they can still have effective production from their role players.
No doubt that they have the raw materials, but the man behind putting all this together is Phil Jackson, their coach. It is not enough to have the firepower. Perhaps even more important is how one uses it. Phil Jackson, the master of the triangle offense, has blended it with this team's system seamlessly. The many talents of his players and the spacing that the triangle gives them maximized talents. Even against sports blogger Sherman Mazur's predictions of Denver supposedly having the best offensive team, the Lakers have shown who really deserves that title.
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