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Man, I was kind of tempted, but I don't have enough time to take it on at this instance. Maybe at some point in the future

Question for 2 candidates so far:

What do you think about isolation tactics, and what skillsets do you think team should have to make them successful?

No answer yet?
Here's mine:
I think it works great in normal game, where you don't have a very strong 5 with equally great players. In NT games it's a bit different, you tend to have slight tendencies, like a team with slightly stronger bigs dans guards, or the opposite, but most NTs are like that, so it's a bit hard to have a strong skill advantage at one position. I think the opponent roster is at least as important as the player skills, and using their weaknesses (game shape, low-ish D) is key to make an ISO offense work.
What seems to work best is using a big@SF, or a guard @SF, kinda like an inverted patient but a bit more subtle, depending on the opposing team SF defense skills. For that you either need a guard with strong ID to at least be able to defend on the other side of the court, or a big with strong OD and decent Dr/Ha/Pa.

Not saying it's the only way, it's just based on the few times I tried to make an ISO work (unsuccessfully most of the time), or when ISO worked against my team.

TLDR: it depends a lot on the opponent players

Well said!

IMO inside iso is not fairy common in NT level when comparing with LI, LP, Motion, R&G. It might be useful if we have 2-3 top tier JS+IS players and play against the opponent who has low OD big man or low ID guard but not playing 3-2

Hello damian, and thank you for the question

ISOs depend mainly on the players profiles, ours and the opponents ones. In my experience, they are particularly effective for focusing an offense on a specific matchup (inside or outside) but also for cancelling out an opponent's GDP or sowing doubt for future GDPs by allowing us to vary our offenses.

To function ideally, at least 2 great shooters - to avoid being caught out by a box-and-one defense - and excellent defenses/rebounds/passes around to minimize the opponent's offense and manage our offense/ball control/post-shot (sometimes to the detriment of JS/JR/IS). Offensive skills (JS, HA, DR, IS) >20 for our shooters, the greater the better ofc.

Let me know if u'd like me to explore the subject even deeper or if there are any points that are unclear.

Aris.

No, you clearly know the tactics guys.

I just have one more question, since the interest in BB in Canada appears to have dropped significantly, even moreso than during my time as NT coach.

How do you plan to reengage the community?

bb-mails, that's the most effective way to at least get somebody's attention in this game. But even that was something like 10% effective 6 years ago. Forum posts and discords are fine and all, but only a handful take the time to go there in the first place, and even less go back frequently. Having a player on the list of potential future players is definitely the most effective way to engage someone

Yeah, I don't think discord is effective at all.

Strongly disagree about the forums though.
Posting a scouting lists, scouting assignments, rankings, etc. on the forum when I was NT manager was pretty much the only thing that got people engaged. Seeing your player as third or fourth showed how close you were, and having that updated was showing trajectory as well.

you guys dont have discord or a place for all the active managers to hang out? If no, I strongly suggest you guys to create one no matter whoever is selected. Even if just few of you that are active here is fine at the beginning.

To build a strong NT team requires a lot of effort from all the active managers and tbh i dont think its NT coach's responsibility as he should have enough tasks to focus on.

I personally recommend discord as it can have some subgroups for different topics like just chatting about NBA, canada basketball team, your own league etc. plus U21 and NT can have their own sub group to discuess with their helpers

Last edited by Lo Gun at 7/10/2025 10:50:03 PM