Pete Carril — the Hall of Fame coach who spent 29 years as the head man at Princeton — is the father of the Princeton offense. He cribbed parts of it from what the Celtics were doing in the 1960s (as Don Nelson did with small ball) but he was the guy that put it together and made it work. It has led to some beautiful basketball.
Not always, though. The offense has flamed out before, and if you need proof you can look at Eddie Jordan’s tenure in Washington. Jordan is a Carril disciple but he could not get the Wizards players to buy in.
Jordan will soon officially be a Lakers assistant. So will the Princeton offense work in Los Angeles, where the Lakers will run a hybrid version of it next season? Carril told Sam Amick of Sports Illustrated he thinks it should.
I imagine that if the [Lakers] guys want to do it, and [the coaches] can convince them that it’d better for them, I think they’ll do it. They have the right ingredients, all the passers. They have really good passers there. The only one I don’t really know much about as a passer is Howard. But [Pau] Gasol can pass and he can shoot, and of course Bryant and Nash can shoot, and whatever they call him now [Metta World Peace], I know he can pass. It all depends on Howard, and then what kind of bench they have…
Generally speaking, that offense doesn’t work when two things are prevalent. One is when they treat it like a robotic thing. And the other is when they don’t want to do it.
I love that he doesn’t know World Peace’s name. Despite working with Artest in Sacramento.
The Lakers will want to do it, Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol asked for it. After years in the triangle they like an offense where no plays are called and what cuts and passes you make depend on how the defense adjusts its coverage. They will not be robotic about it. Steve Nash will buy in. Dwight Howard will buy in. It may take a little while for the offense to really click (especially with Howard missing training camp due to his back), but the Lakers should make it work.
Like a lot of observers, Carril thinks this could be good for Kobe Bryant.
What I told Eddie is that it might work for this team for several reasons. One is that you’re going to get easy shots for Kobe Bryant. And over the last several years, I’ve seen where his shots have become harder and harder to get. He’s getting older and more tired, so I’d like to see whether they can get him some easy shots. He’s going to make them.
But you have to set picks to do that, whether you set a pick with Gasol or whoever it is, you’re going to get a free shot and they’re going to find out — the way I did — that the guy who sets the pick, after a while, is going to be more open than the guy that he set the pick for. They’ve got shooters, they’ve got passers, so they can run that. Whether they want to do it? I think Eddie can show them how to do it so it’s not robotic, and it could be effective.
To help you better understand what we are talking about, this video from Coach Nick at Bballbreakdown.com is a fantastic explanation of how the basic Princeton offense can leave opposing teams with impossible choices against the Lakers. Plus, the faces used on the graphic are the best ever.
