Important aspects of a winning basketball team!

[DSouthr]

I don't know how often many think in terms of there needing to be several aspects working together that forge a great team. But I would break them down in to a few important areas:

1) Talent - As the saying goes, it ain't the Xs & Os, it is the Jimmys & Joes. If you have enough talent you should win. But season before last Ky had IMO, maybe the most talented basketball team I have maybe ever seen from top to bottom. IT was individual and raw talent but the level of raw talent on one team was really amazing and frightening if I am being honest. But they didn't win the Natty, they got beat by a more cohiesive team that was not nearly as talented.

2) Balance front to back court - It is great to have great talent in your front court but if you do not have the guard play to get that front court talent the ball then that talented is wasted. Great to have great guards but ya better have someone able to rebound their misses. Great teams strike that balance of front to back court play. That great group of talent for Ky was let down by their back court play.

3) Chemistry - Guys need to like playing with each other, they need to look out for their team mates, they need to band together as a cohiesive unit as opposed to a group of individuals looking for theirs. If the back court guys are gonna get theirs and the front court guys want theirs then somebody ain't getting what they want and all the sudden guys are not working as a unit, they are working as a collection of individuals, almost like a Micky D game. You can be OK with that in a all star game but for a season it can really blow blow up on you, as UNC fans well recall from the Larry Drew/Ed Davis days. Ky fans should know what I am talking about with the Harrisons pumping up long treys early in shot clocks as future NBA front court guys watched shots soar over them as Whisky ended their season. To many chefs spoil the supper because the individual chefs want it done their way and only their way.

4) Coaching - Yeah, it is important, it may be about Jimmy & Joe but without the solid Xs & Os Jimmy & Joe don't get to show. You need a coach that can balance out the talent he has, keeping everyone together, realizing who his on and off court leaders are, and you need a coach that talent loves to play for.

5) Experience - seems to be the thing that is under estimated every single season, we see a couple of freshman dominated teams win the natty and all the sudden experience no longer matters? Well we just saw a natty between 2 teams loaded with jr and sr players that did not rely on freshmen. While Ky and duke won nattys with freshmen leading the way they as well had key very experienced players that produced big time. Duke may have started 3 freshmen but their other 2 starters I* believe were seniors. Any coach wil tell you, roll out 4-5 freshmen to start for your college team and you are rolling the dice, you never know what you wil get from one game to the next. They are not as mature in either their game or as being adults and that matters late in a long season when things are not clicking like they are supposed to. Neither we nor Nova were the most talented teams in the country last season, just look at the NBA draft projections if ya don't agree with that but we are the 2 that played for the natty. Both teams had very good talent but that talent was experienced and matured talent, not raw talent that lacked a degree of maturity.

So I kinda wanted to get that out there, to get some opinions on how you see a great team built and to share my own. Love to see your take on this...

 

[montana_heel]

Like the premise South. Not sure if you ranked them in importance and what you consider a winning team.

To be clear, I will say a final four contender would have these in this order:

1. Would say you have to talent but talent can be developed so it can go hand in hand with experience. Brice as an example had talent from the get go but effectiveness was 180 degrees compared to his freshman year.

3. This is extremely underrated and not only in sports. You don't have to be best friends with someone but you better be pulling the oars in the same direction or you're not gonna get anywhere. Experience helps with chemistry in my opinion. Nothing brings people together better than being put to the test together.

4. I waffle between coaching and experience because the only way experience is valuable is if your coach is making you a better basketball player. I believe that Roy is very good at this aspect of coaching.

5. Saw it last year.

2. Good coaching and experience can hide some of these flaws unless they are glaring.

 

[DSouthr]

Like the premise South. Not sure if you ranked them in importance and what you consider a winning team.

To be clear, I will say a final four contender would have these in this order:

1. Would say you have to talent but talent can be developed so it can go hand in hand with experience. Brice as an example had talent from the get go but effectiveness was 180 degrees compared to his freshman year.

3. This is extremely underrated and not only in sports. You don't have to be best friends with someone but you better be pulling the oars in the same direction or you're not gonna get anywhere. Experience helps with chemistry in my opinion. Nothing brings people together better than being put to the test together.

4. I waffle between coaching and experience because the only way experience is valuable is if your coach is making you a better basketball player. I believe that Roy is very good at this aspect of coaching.

5. Saw it last year.

2. Good coaching and experience can hide some of these flaws unless they are glaring.

I really didn't rank them but more added them as they came to mind so maybe my mind did the ranking and I just typed it out.

Some of the aspects do rely on other aspects, for example a poor coach is going to see a lot of his experienced guys transfer out of his program. Another example is I think a good coach really does bring in kids that help build chemistry and should stay away from those kids that have shown to be chemistry killers in the past. Not an exact science mind you, Roy had Drew, Ed, PJ that were not examples of great chemistry guys, Ky got Wall and Cousins who looked like their past could mean they may not be the best chemistry fits but didn't suffer from that as freshmen at Ky. By the way, I do not really see kalipari as a great coach, I see him as an effective recruiters and yet his success stands on its own.

Even front to back court balance can be altered if you have a great center for example that can cover up a lot of mistakes and force things to cave in so much that average shooters get wide open looks and score a lot more than if they were guarded. Greg Oden for example, that OSU team IMO was not overly special while he was sitting out hurt but just adding him to that active roster made not only that team much better but made the other players seem to play much better, they were not better players, they just had better scoring opportunities. Anthony Davis is another example of that, look what happened to Ky when they lost Noel to injury, they tanked.

Athletic 7ft players and long PGs that can shoot treys are game changers, no matter if they are freshmen or seniors.