Free
Conceptual Playbook
Shared principles to help your team create, maintain, and convert advantages.
Learning pathway
Build Your Conceptual Offense
Identify what your team needs, choose your starting principles and build a practice to introduce them. Use what happens in games to develop the offense over time.
- Who it's for
- Coaches introducing or developing a conceptual offense with their team.
- Outcome
- Choose starting principles for your team, build a practice to introduce them and develop the offense from what happens in games.
Stage 01 of 04
Assess Your Current Offense
Review game possessions. Where does your team struggle: creating an advantage, maintaining it or converting it? Identify a rate limiter.
Look beyond whether the possession ends in a made shot. Your team might create an open shot and miss, or score after the offense has stalled. Follow the possession from the first action and identify where the opportunity changes.
For example, a drive may draw a second defender, but the receiver holds the kick-out pass until the defense recovers. The starting point is then maintaining the advantage after the pass. Select several possessions showing that situation and describe what players need to recognize.
Stage 02 of 04
Choose Your Starting Principles
Select spacing templates and one or two triggers suited to your players. Define the coverage solutions you will introduce first.
Connect those choices to the rate limiter you identified. If the difficulty appears against a switched ball screen, begin with that situation. Consider how the ball-handler, screener and off-ball teammates can create an advantage together, and where each player needs space to act.
Give players a shared starting point, then let them explore the available solutions. A trigger begins the interaction; what happens next depends on the defense. Use the same language across your activities so players can connect the practice situation to the game.
Stage 03 of 04
Build Your First Practice
Choose activities and constraints that address the rate limiter.
Worked example: If your team struggles to create an advantage against a switch, play 3-on-3 using a ball screen, with the defense constrained to switching. Allow the ball-handler, screener and off-ball teammate to explore the available coverage solutions. Then let the defense switch or use another coverage so the offense must recognize which solution is available.
Plan what you will observe before the activity begins. Are players noticing the switch, using the available space and responding to one another? If the opportunity is difficult to recognize, adjust the starting positions or demonstrate a possible solution, then return to live play. Keep the learning intention clear as you change the challenge.
Stage 04 of 04
Review and Develop the System
Observe how players respond in games. Decide which solutions need more practice and what to introduce next.
Return to the rate limiter you identified in Stage 1. Review several possessions where that situation appears, including both successful and unsuccessful outcomes. Look at what players noticed and how they responded, rather than judging the possession only by whether the shot went in.
For example, players may find a solution against a switch in practice because they know the defense will switch. In games, the next question is whether they recognize the coverage as it happens and coordinate their response. Look for the ball-handler, screener and off-ball players acting together.
Use those observations to choose a specific next step. You might revisit the same activity with varied coverages, adjust a starting position, or demonstrate a solution players have not noticed. Record what changed and what still needs work, then use that evidence to plan the next practice.
Listen· Episode 7 · 21 minEP7: Why You SHOULDN'T Run Pass and Cut OffenseListen to episodeReady for your next practice
Your offense plan
A starting point to take onto the court. Observe, adjust and keep exploring.
Next Step: Learn the Full System
Explore the triggers, coverage solutions and practice activities that connect these principles to your team’s offense.
Implementing a Conceptual Offense
$49 USD
Take the Starter Kit onto the court. Alex explains how to teach shared principles, triggers and coverage solutions through game examples and small-sided games.
Youth Conceptual Offense
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Go deeper into teaching dominoes, creating advantages and developing your offense through small-sided games.