I've used the Flex with kids 12,13,14 years old. It take a lot of repetition but it teaches them movement. Most kids that age stand and watch without the ball. It has worked well for me. REPS,REPS AND MORE REPS!
+Erick Cazares Hi Erick! That's awesome! If you and your team are learning this offense for the first time it's going to be great fun once you've got it down! Best wishes to you young man! Send me some video of your team running it in the future :)
The "Trailing Big" Concept is great with your 4-Man uptop, receiving the 1st Pass. Teach your 4-Man passing skills to find that 1st Flex Cutter = 3-Man
Hi russ, I wanna thank you for these videos. Ive never been good at basketball, but you've helped me gain a lot of IQ as a player to change that. I know it's been over a year, but i was hoping to ask if you have a proper iso ball play you recommend or like to do. Like one that allows us to always have a smooth option to go to if the iso player is getting locked up. Atm my team struggles the most against 3-2 zones and being able to find a for sure scoring option when all else is lost. We just heavily try to rely on a 2-man game that can be stopped and ruin our whole offensive mindset. If not, how about a play/strategy vs a full/half court press?
Hello first thank u for all the sharing. I m coach Prince. I liv in Belgium in brussel. I would like to ask u if you have vidéo from session training and some nw exercice you recommand for my u18 team. See u soon
We were in the process of getting ready to shoot some live action stuff for my channel. Plays as well as a full practice tutorial. Then the shutdowns began and it’s so difficult to do now. As soon as it looks like we can do that without restrictions that’s next on my list of things for this channel.
+kbeatty5150 That question is probably best answered based on the skill level and abilities of your players rather purely based on age. If you feel confident in all or most of your players ball handling, passing, and most importantly- reading of the defense, then I’d say yeah, this would be a great offensive strategy to employ. I’ve seen teams at that age run the flex well and some much older teams struggle with it.
Coach Russ thanks Coach much appreciated, I have one more question; Having a team with very minimal skill, what would be the easiest man to man offense to teach?
+kbeatty5150 Hi Coach, it’s a tough question to answer knowing nothing of your team or your coaching style. I’ll try my best to communicate what I would do if I had a team with “very minimal skill” as you have described. I would get them excited about defense. Defense requires more effort than skill. If you can get you players excited about forcing turnovers, out hustling your opponent, trapping, frustrating them, etc., you’ll always be in the game. If you can score a lot you may have a chance at winning; if you can stop your opponent from scoring you will never lose. Full speed layups off steals and turnovers become more important with a team like that over a set offensive scheme. I hope that helps coach. That part aside, a basic spread offense where you have your players spread the court and have your best ball handler take their defender to the basket is very easy to teach. Blessings to you.
This is really a great response, I've been coaching youth basketball for 7 years now and I've had really skilled groups and groups who are new to the game, every kid is different but one thing that is certain if you teach them how to defend properly in man and zone defense and they play with superb effort you can always be in a game just off playing defense and in transition. Set plays with a green group is always a challenge but an offense like this can help teach them how to move without the ball esp if you don't have guys who can put the ball down on the floor to create their own shots and that is completely ok, awesome points Coach Russ
@@CoachRuss He is talking about a 2-2-1 Set = both wings occupied. Or he could be talking about the Euro-League style Flex Offense where the point guard executes a dribble entry toward a sideline (ball-side corner occupied as the 1st flex cutter) instead of the traditional lane line extended. The dribble entry point guard passes backwards to a "Trailing Big" located at the Top of Key for Ball Reversal. The ball is reversed to the opposite wing.
+Abishek Gopalakrishnan Hi! Great question! There's no one way to pass that is best for every situation. I would say that the best pass is one the reaches it's intended target safely, whether that's a chest pass, bounce pass, or overhead pass.
That’s a great age to consider teaching this offense. It can be taught and executed with success at younger ages but you’ll often have a few players who will find it difficult. My personal take on the game with regard to young players is to keep it fun and not focus so much on winning. Just my opinion.
Yeah, it can be a difficult offense to teach and learn. I've wanted to make this video for so long but struggled to figure out the best way to be able to teach this through RU-vid. It's a constant motion offense and offensive looks are built into the pattern. When the defense breaks down, and they eventually will because of all the screens, wide open layups is usually what you'll see.
What I like about the flex is that the pattern is continious+simple. Continious gives smaller teams without a good outside shot a chance to force taller defenders outside the paint and creates more efficient shots close to the basket or even force a zonedefense. The simple basic pattern is easy to teach because it is basically "screen away from the ball". All the details and options can be taught later during warmup drills during the season. No matter what offense you run, you will have to teach all the options available eventually during season, every offense has that problem and if it doesn't then it will be very predictable. You could say lets run ballscreen offense instead, but that takes alot better players to execute well. You will have to teach the players everything about dealing with different types of defenses tactics against ballscreens which will certainly take more then 1 season. The flex will not be a great choice when you have bigs that do not play high positions well I believe or when your big is really good around the paint and you want to keep him there. Youthplayers have to be able to pass and maybe dribble (to create assists), if you have players that can do perform these actions well, then maybe play an offense that let bigs keep their positons like read & react offense, which first couple of layers are very similar (screens, cuts, backscreens, fillout and movement but no ballscreens). But the read and react also has downsides just like every offense so as always pick your poison. ;-)
