🏀 How the Warriors utilize their undersized bigs

Published: Thu, 06/02/22

Hi Coach,

The Golden State Warriors are back in the NBA Finals and they are doing what they know best - score the ball at a fast pace.

As the game has changed, the classical positions that we used to know changed as well - post players nowadays don’t just post up and play 1-on-1 back to the basket.

For modern-day basketball, we need agile big men that help us stretch the floor and support the flow of our fast pace offense, and often we end up having undersized players on the floor.

What can we do to be able to take full advantage of our undersized big men in our fast-paced offense?

We will take a look at how you can fully maximize the utility of your undersized bigs in modern-day offense with Lainn Wilson, who is currently player development coach and head video coordinator for the Golden State Warriors.

Spacing Movement in the Low Zone

When you have players like Steph Curry, Draymond Green and even Andrew Wiggins, it is absolutely crucial to have the proper spacing in and around the paint from your bigs, and they need to react to drives from different angles.

Take a look at how Coach Wilson from Warriors teaches spacing out for the bigs in the low zone:

Low Zone Spacing for Big Men

Have Strategy For Each Ball Screen Coverage

The problem with a lot of big men at a high school and even college level is that they do not know how to properly read defensive coverages in pick-and-roll situations. As simple as it sounds, if you spend some extra time on film with your big men on how to attack different ball screen coverages, this will absolutely give you extra open looks each game.

Watch Coach Wilson break down in detail how big men should attack different ball screen coverages.

Roll Strategies vs Ball Screen Coverages

PROPERLY executing DHOs

As much as we as coaches focus on the guards during DHO’s there is so much more that we can do with proper spacing and angles of the big man with the ball.

We need to always face OVER and be aware when we need to rescreen and roll hard after the DHO or the Re-screen action. Watch how Coach Wilson teaches the proper DHO execution for his Big Men:

DHO Technique for Big Men

As we can see, playing with undersized big men can be of advantage, if we teach them how to properly execute actions in their role.

Try to adopt these concepts and keep them in mind during off-season/pre-season development and watch how your offense can have even better flow, finding more open looks just from utilizing the proper technique.

If you are interested in learning more from Coach Wilson, check out his full course at the link below:

Developing Non-Shooting Big Men

Talk to you soon,

Brian Williams

The Coaching Toolbox