The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 456 Two Subtractions and One Increase

Gan Guoyang's words eased Ramsey's anxiety and made his mind much clearer.

Ramsey certainly knew that no tactic could be solved simply by giving the ball to one person.

Having more one-on-one plays doesn't mean lower tactical requirements. Often, how to get the ball to the player who can play one-on-one is also part of the tactical process.

Forrest Gump was a center, not a guard, so it was difficult for him to start taking the ball from the backcourt and do his own thing like Jordan did (Forrest Gump: It's not impossible). A team with low tactical awareness can't feed the ball to the center well.

Or conversely, any team that wants to build around its inside players and develop an offensive system must have a high level of tactical awareness.

Only offensive teams like the Spurs and Nuggets, whose offenses are primarily led by guards and forwards, can play freestyle offense; this is determined by the characteristics of their players.

Last season, Gan Guoyang and Ramsey worked hard to organically combine singles and team tactics.

To motivate the team's tactical enthusiasm, Gan Guoyang has a three-three rule for singles: after receiving the ball, the time to handle it should not exceed three seconds, the dribbling time should not exceed three times, and the offensive methods in the low post should not exceed three in a single game.

His assists and ball distribution skills have reached their best levels since his rookie season, all in an effort to better contribute to the team's offense.

Although Forrest Gump always seemed to be saying, "Give me the ball and you don't have to do anything," it was to give everyone confidence. He was the kind of person who could still squeeze out a little joke to comfort you and tell you that everything was okay even if the earth was about to explode.

Behind the scenes, he trained harder than anyone else and thought more than anyone else. Every season he changed and improved.

In his rookie season, he played like Moses Malone in the paint, but by the end of his third season, he was almost completely different from Moses and had become himself.

Ramsey noticed that Gan Guoyang was heavier and stronger than before.

He must have been training like crazy this summer, and he's sure to have an even better and more amazing performance in the new season.

Thinking about all this, Ramsey rallied himself and worked overtime with Berman to watch videos, compile and analyze data, and constantly combine it with past historical experience in an attempt to set the tone for the team's new season.

This process was very painful for Ramsey.

His physical fitness is not a problem, and his energy is not a problem either.

The problem lies in his mindset, in the ideas he once clung to.

Looking at the statistics provided by Bellman, the game footage from last season, and even earlier footage edited by Bellman, the two, after repeated discussions and training experiments, came to a conclusion: they had to overturn many of the tactical principles that had been held as gospel in the past.

After a week of working overtime, painful thinking, debate, arguments, and calling Cunningham and Pete Newell at 3 a.m., Ramsey made his decision.

At training camp, he outlined the tactical requirements for the new season to the Trail Blazers players, who had been feeling lost for a week, summarizing them simply into three points:
"Reduce fast breaks, reduce passing, increase three-pointers."

Two decreases and one increase.

Everyone was a bit confused by Ramsey's words. Was this really Dr. Jack?

Gan Guoyang asked in a low voice, "Isn't the tactical requirement to give the ball to Agan? What are you talking about, Jack?"

Ramsey rolled his eyes at Gan Guoyang, and then he and Bobby Bellman explained the purpose of the two subtractions and one increase.

Reducing rapid attacks means that unless there is an absolutely certain opportunity for a rapid counterattack, a quick counterattack will not be launched, and a positional war will be adopted instead.

In a game in the 80s, there might be around 15 to 20 fast breaks. Against weaker opponents or against the Nuggets, the number of fast breaks could exceed 20.

Jack Ramsey once predicted that if you can successfully execute more than 30 fast breaks in a game, the probability of winning that game is very high.

In the late 70s and early 80s, fast breaks played a very important role in NBA games and were a guarantee of high scoring efficiency.

Ramsey has always been a staunch supporter of fast breaks and is known for yelling "run, run, run" from the sidelines.

However, in the late 80s, as defense gradually improved and physical confrontation became more and more effective, the success rate of fast breaks declined.

On the contrary, in positional warfare, when you have a one-on-one expert like Forrest Gump, the efficiency is not much worse than fast break, and the lethality is even stronger.

Therefore, he requested that the number of fast breaks in a game be reduced to around 10.

The second rule is to reduce passing.

Unless a teammate has a very good opportunity, or the tactics are designed for someone to attack with the ball, the player with the ball should reduce meaningless, defensive passes and initiate attacks themselves.

In the past, basketball involved a lot of passing and passing during offense, and the more passes a team made, the more it reflected their teamwork. However, as players' physical abilities have improved, the taller and stronger NBA players have made the court space increasingly smaller.

The more passes you make, the greater the chance of a mistake.

The damage caused by a mistake can be greater than the benefit of a goal.

Ramsey used to strongly encourage players to pass the ball, and the Trail Blazers have always had the best half-court passing system in the league, as well as an excellent high-post center playmaking system.

However, Bobby Bellman's statistics show that more passes are not necessarily better.

Because the NBA doesn't keep track of pass counts, he collected a lot of game footage for sampling and analysis.

Together with Spoelstra (who stayed in Portland for college), he visually counted the number of passes in each game round and categorized them.

Which passes are offensive passes that threaten the opponent's defense? Which passes are defensive passes, passed to teammates to prevent mistakes or when the passer is too tired to continue? Which passes are meaningless?

This requirement is to reduce defensive passes and eliminate meaningless passing.

The players need to be more creative on the court, more willing to unleash their offensive talents, and be a threat from every angle—the Trail Blazers' players have that talent.

As for the third point, adding three points is a trend that the league is heading towards.

Three-pointers are not only more efficient at scoring than two-pointers, but more importantly, they can create space and give each player more room to perform.

These three points all contradict Ramsey's past basketball principles, so it's no wonder he was in so much pain.

It is extremely difficult for a person to deny their past self and create a new one.

Such denial and rebirth can only be experienced once in a lifetime, which is a transformation and sublimation. If one has to experience it twice, one will not be able to bear it and will collapse.

In the 60s and 70s, Ramsey had already experienced a period of self-doubt.

In the late 60s and early 70s, the tactical system on the basketball court took on a completely different look.

A large number of attacks are initiated from the triangle formation in the half-court, with the center receiving the ball with his back to the basket in the paint, and then attacking with his back to the basket, or passing the ball to the outside, and so on.

In 1972, the U.S. Department of Education issued an important law called the Ninth Amendment to the Act, which protected people from gender discrimination in educational programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.

This law, intended to uphold gender equality, profoundly changed the basketball tactics of high schools and colleges, which in turn changed the NBA and influenced Ramsey.

Because of the principle of gender equality, the practice time for basketball teams in public high schools and universities has to be halved, because you have to free up half the time for girls, whether they are playing basketball or participating in other activities.

This means less basketball training time. In the past, the triangle offense in half-court games required a lot of time to train and coordinate, especially for the inside players, who needed to know a lot of tactical routines.

With less training time, there's no time to practice these routines, and the team's offensive level drops significantly.

At that moment, Bob Knight invented "motion offense," a system in which all players go to the perimeter to set screens, creating shooting and layup opportunities for cutting players.

This system swept across the United States in the 70s, not only because it was efficient and flexible, but also because it was simple and easy to learn. A large number of high school coaches flocked to Bob Knight's training camp to learn this revolutionary offensive method.

This offensive system then influenced the NBA. When the high school students of the 70s entered the league in the 80s, many of them learned and played under this system. The style of play in the 80s became faster and faster, with more fast breaks and more passing.

Jack Ramsey was also influenced in the 70s. He entered the league in 1967 and completed his transformation in 1977 with the Portland Trail Blazers, reaching the pinnacle of his career.

But he didn't expect that another 10 years would pass, and in 1987, the world of basketball would change again.

They seem to want to go back to the triangular tactics and positional attacks of the 60s.

Is this world really a giant cycle machine?

Ramsey has raised this question more than once.

Regardless, he has decided to quit after this season.

He doesn't have the physical strength or energy to last another 15 or 20 years, waiting for the next cycle to begin.

(End of this chapter)