Where has all the creativity gone?

Watching the first week of the NBA season we've noticed some familiar patterns emerge.

First the NBA playbook of a steady diet of ball screens will never go away. Players who have great ability with the ball in the hands are just too dangerous coming off the ball screen. It puts tremendous pressure on the defense to guard this action and if you combine it with a talented player as the screener it's very difficult to guard.

At the collegiate level it seems that coaches have completely eschewed the motion game or creative specials and strictly use the ball screen game. Last night the URI-Pitt game, Pitt almost exclusively ran side ball screens in the closing minutes of a tight game. You'll notice as you watch the college game even teams that were once traditional motion offense teams, now feature a steady diet of ball screens.

Another more troubling aspect of coaching is the lack of creativity or ideas at the pro level. You can almost tell what's coming every trip down and there are very few wrinkles or options that teams employ to get any variety of looks for their players. Now if you have a dominant lineup and will win by keeping it simple, by all means, but teams that are inferior in their talent shouldn't try to overpower teams with a simple playbook and hope their talent wins out, it won't. We're not going to mention any names here (New Jersey).

We're going to watch film this week and see how Atlanta and their motion based game has been fairing. Their record has been good so far, but we'll report on how their offense has looked early on.