Brooklyn Nets' star Kevin Durant invited NBA dad and professional provocateur, LaVar Ball, onto his podcast–“The ETCS“–where, unsurprisingly, the two sparred over Ball's insistence that he's actually a strategic savant.
Claiming that the secret recipe to success is actually implementing a”full-court press defense”, Ball himself was pressed by Durant time and again over the impracticability of such a strategy. Despite the fact that Ball has never played professional basketball–and in fact barely played college ball for that matter–the father of Lonzo and LaMelo was undeterred in his thinking, and dismissed Durant's arguments throughout the episode.
Per a transcript from Yahoo! Sports, heres part of the interaction between the two:
Durant: “You’re not pressing no point guard, no starting point guard in the league right now. I don't believe thats happening”
Ball: “I’ll overplay, you’re gonna have to throw that ball — I guarantee you,” Ball said. “You know why they don’t press? Because that’s the word. See, you [are] putting it out there, too. Can’t press, point guard’s too good. Yeah, you might get through 20 times, but we see what you [are] gonna do the other 40 times. I’ll tell you that.”
Disregarding Ball's lack of experience for a moment, which compared to Kevin Durant is considerable to say the least, the basic flaw in his strategy is that, even if initially successful at the start of games, it would ultimately bring about diminishing returns as the game wore on. Offenses that would break through the first defenders in the press would be left with a direct lane to the basket, as well as possessing two-man advantages in the half-court. Defenses that pressed for the entire game meanwhile, would be expending so much effort, that the turnovers they would be reliant upon would become less and less frequent as they grow tired.
Ultimately however, as we've learned over the years, the success of Ball is not from creating cutting-edge basketball strategies, but instigating arguments with his less than sound arguments.
You may not end up smarter after listening to LaVar Ball, but you are likely entertained.
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