Coaches often ask me to explain what the Read & React Offense is; and I know they are expecting a neat, concise, 3 sentence answer. Unfortunately, I have found that to be impossible. Right now the best way I know how to convey the R&R to you is simply to provide the most articulate question a fellow coach has written to me, and my best attempt at answering that question. By the way, thanks to John, for asking this question so well and inspiring its answer.

Q: First of all, let me say that—sight unseen—I’m really excited about your program. Almost every review I’ve read has been overwhelmingly positive. The only real criticisms I’ve seen state that the concepts aren’t new. My response to that is simple, what concepts ARE new? What excites me the most about what I’ve seen is the way you’ve put it all together so that it’s understandable to kids, frees them from the “analysis paralysis” that restricts athletic spontaneity, evolves as necessary with optional layers, and includes drills that support and build the system. That IS new.

Anyway, I’m rambling. My first question is, how young an age level would you start implementing some of these ideas? The youngest I coach is 3rd/4th grade, which I feel would be ideal for introducing the basic concepts that could then be layered as the kids age and develop their skills. Another fantastic aspect of this system as I understand it is that it demands strong fundamentals, which is what coaches should be stressing anyway. The kids will be able to understand the system quickly enough that a lot of time can be dedicated to simple essentials like dribbling and shooting and the transition game, which is so difficult to do with the reality of limited gym time. I’m not in this for the presumed glory of dictating actions from young robots. I want to help kids who love the game become better players (individually and in a team setting) so that they can keep playing as long as possible…in any system.

One of the other critiques I hear about this style of offense (which of course they’re thinking is only a 5-out formation like DDM, forgetting that your system is flexible), is that it can only be run if you have a team of highly skilled athletes. Do you feel that’s true? I’d like to run alternating 5-out and 4-out formations at the AAU level because the teams I work with never have any size, and because I always have a mix of wide-ranging levels of talent. I believe that a spread offense that simplifies motion concepts would be ideally suited for my situation, which is why I’m excited about R&R, but perhaps I’ll learn a hard lesson that I do need 5 dominating players if I run the spread offense. What are your thoughts on that?

A: The single most difficult thing to do with the R&R is to “sell” it in 25 words or less. Truth be told, it’s difficult to explain the entire thing, with players on the floor, in any time under 4 hours. I’ve tried it. I think I’m the best at it (I should be!) and I can’t do it justice in any time less than 4 hours. Here’s why (and I’m trying to answer some of your questions by explaining it this way):

It was not sufficient for me to simply come up with A NEW OFFENSE. Defenses will find a way to counter it. A NEW OFFENSE might work for a short time, but the defensive game will catch up to it. Vice versa, I remember when Dean Smith’s “helping” defense hit the scene. It changed the way the game was played but offensive counters have since arisen and his defensive scheme is not the game changer that it was when it first came out. That’s the nature of the sport. It’s a good thing and it helps to evolve the sport.

The critics who say that there’s nothing new about the R&R are correct to a certain degree. Almost every layer, skill, habit, or whatever you call the components of my system are tried and true fundamentals of the game. That was intentional on my part. Anything that gets away from the fundamentals of the game is asking for problems.

Those critics, however, that address the R&R as only a “Spread offense” or a “5-out offense” or a “Dribble Drive offense” or a “Pass and Cut offense” or anything else of this nature have OBVIOUSLY not watched ANY of the DVDs. On disc #1 in the R&R set, I explain what the R&R is, what it’s not, and where we as a coaching community should be going with it. I was taught in school that in order to give an accurate book review, one must actually READ the book! Oh well, there will always be lazy people who want to pretend they know something without doing their due diligence.

What I have done with the R&R is set up a TEACHING method for 5 player coordination by principle only. If you run a play, you get 5 player coordination but not by principle. If you play a motion game, you get principle, but not 5 player coordination. I wanted both. And I wanted it to be teachable and transferable from the youngest age and up. I could have designed it specifically for high level teams, but then it would be like any other offense that ASSUMES a certain level of proficiency by the players. I wanted the R&R to ASSUME NOTHING about the type of players or the style of play. (So that takes care of the other ignorant critic who says you have to have certain types of players to run the R&R. Again, it’s obvious that this “critic” has not viewed even the first DVD of the 6 DVD set.)

The R&R is not a magic pill. I was once asked in a clinic what would happen if 5 players who can’t shoot ran the R&R. I told the coach that the team would LOSE! You’re going to lose with any offense if your players can’t make a shot! But this brings up an important aspect of the R&R. A coach can teach the fundamentals and drill the fundamentals of the game like dribbling, passing, catching, shooting, lay-ups, one-on-one, screens, spacing, give-and-go, post play, etc,…WHILE teaching the R&R offense. As a coach for 24 years, I understand the importance of collapsing time frames during the miniscule time that we have with our players!

This stress on the fundamentals is a two edged sword that I wanted to create: The better the players are at the fundamentals, the better they will be in the R&R. The more they run the R&R, the better they will get at the fundamentals. This creates some interesting dynamics in the off-season. Guess what the players are motivated to be doing? You’re right, working on shooting, ballhandling, etc. because the better they are at them, the more advantage they can take of the R&R.

It’s also important to understand why I “glued” the 5 player coordination together with only “2-player-reads-and-reactions”. I don’t want the success of 5 player coordination to be contingent on ALL of the players understanding the big picture of the entire offense. (This is going to answer your question about when you can begin and with what age, etc.) All that is necessary to ensure that your team acts, moves, and plays as a team is for each player to react correctly to what the ball does with ONE AND ONLY ONE reaction. Any coach can drill any player to watch the ball (they watch the ball all of the time anyway!) and react with ONE predetermined move. Example: Layer 1: If the ball drives to the goal going right, then players without the ball on the perimeter move one “spot” to their right (on the perimeter). Of course post players do something different, but it’s still only one reaction. If there’s anything unique to what I’ve done, it’s that I’ve coordinated every player’s reaction to fit together consistently, without compromising spacing, etc. and I’ve managed to do it with every type of formation that a coach could use and with every type of player and with every style of play that’s out there.

Once I had all of the reactions that were needed, I put them in an order that best fits the development of our youth. But this order of development also fits with what occurs most often in a game. In addition, this order fits with what an opposing coach would do to counter each offensive action. Putting the R&R together in this manner has garnered the following type of a response from players: “It’s easy to learn because it cuts to my natural instincts.” Again, this is one of the things that I wanted to create. If the players view the offensive action as something they should be doing naturally, then it’s easier to sell them on it. Players begin to “own it”. It’s not “Coach’s offense”, it’s simply “how we play”. Here’s how I ordered the teaching layers of the offense:

1. The first thing that all players on all levels do with the ball from the moment of tip off, is they put the ball on the floor and take it to the rack. That’s why my first layer addresses Dribble Penetration.
2. The second layer concerns Baseline Drives, but it will still be viewed by the players as Dribble Penetration.
3. The next most common thing done in any game on the street or in the NBA finals is: someone passes to a teammate “one spot away” on the perimeter. That’s why the third layer is Pass and Cut.
4. When driving and passing are put together, someone will be in the lane when a drive occurs. They must react as if they are a Post Player. That’s why the fourth layer is elementary Post Slides.
5. The next most common movement with the ball is someone dribbles “East-West” along the arc, not threatening the basket. That’s why my fifth layer is called the Speed Dribble. It forces a basket cut by those who are being dribbled at. In that manner, someone is always threatening to score.

This layering continues until EVERYTHING that a ballhandler could do initiates one predetermined movement by everyone else on the floor. The ballhandler doesn’t HAVE to do anything other than take what the defense gives him or her.

The rest of the layers (17) of the offense are developed in similar fashion. One of the later layers is dedicated to using all of the previous habits to attack a Zone defense. One of the layers is a counter to helping, sagging defense. One of the layers shows how to fold your fast break transition directly into the R&R without setting up. Four of the remaining layers comprise a section that is called POST PLAY. As you can imagine, this section takes one post or two post players and continues with the offense. So again, this shows you that the critics who say that this is an open post offense have probably never even been on our website, much less actually looked at the Read & React. I have a ton of coaches running the R&R who have never played a 5-out open post formation. They play a 4-out or 3-out 2-in formation because of the type of players they have. Isn’t that what coaches are supposed to do? Hide their weaknesses and play to their strengths?

Teaching 3rd and 4th graders: My hat’s off to you! This age level is where the best teachers of the game SHOULD be! The layer on Dribble Penetration and the layer on Pass and Cut is all I would do with this age group. But if they progress beyond what you expect, then there’s always another layer for you to implement. I can’t judge that for you. That’s why the success of R&R is still in the coach’s hands. You just can’t take the place of the judgment and teaching ability of the coach.

I love the way you say, “I’m not in this for the presumed glory of dictating actions from young robots.” If so, then the R&R is tailor made for you.

I think I’ve already answered your question in the paragraph about “style of play” and having “5 dominant players”. By the way, if you have 5 dominant players, you can probably run ANYTHING and look like a genius! If a coach needs 5 dominant, all-around-skilled, athletes to run a particular offense, I’d say the success of the offense is not the Xs and Os drawn by the coach, but WHO his Xs are and WHO the Os are he’s playing against!

Regarding zones, (I know I’ve already addressed it), but I just want to say that one of my goals with the R&R is to not have separate offenses for man-to-man and zone defenses. Of course there are small adjustments, but there are adjustments to make against different types of man-to-man defenses and there are different adjustments to make against different teams. But making an adjustment is not equivalent to running a different offense.

This is the best I can do in words to describe the R&R. You’ll have to see the DVDs to understand it fully.

And by the way, if “shooting long distance shots” is the only answer to a zone defense, then the zone defense has won! So my solutions to attacking a zone defense involves more than “put a good shooter in this spot and put another good shooter in that spot”. What if you don’t have great long distance shooters? There has to be an answer. And there is.