I purchased your motion offense book and tried it tonight at practice. I have played and coached basketball for quite a few years and have always been in a "structured" offense type program. I understand and believe in what your book teaches. We have been practicing alot of basic drills and fundamentals prior to this. But when I implemented the motion offense it looked like a 3 man weave drill with 5 people. It was somewhat like they were just running to run, (to keep the 2 sec rule). Then in some cases it was very difficult to keep them from following their pass.
I was thinking of starting off with the 4-1 and making a rule where the cutter had to c-cut around the 1 and back to an open spot or set a screen for someone after the cut and everyone else would rotate to fill the empty spot while that person was cutting?
Is what I seen normal? Do you have any recommendations or will it come with time. I believe in what I read and alot of it is most likely the frustration or loss of "coach" control or feeling of structured offense and productive execution. Most of the kids are not real athletic and with the structured offense I could at least teach them where to look and when for the cutters. I imagine this will grow and improve with time.
Thanks,.

This will take a little time. Run some break down skill drills teaching players "pieces of the offense". For example, you could run a shooting drill that teaches them how how to screen and away curl off the screen. Teach them how to basket cut.

Then put them out in a 5 on 0 drill. Have them make 20 passes in their motion and then shoot. They'll start learning how to maintain spacing and work with each other.

Another simple progression is to just teach them pass and cut. Basically teach them this offense:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/offense/cutters.html

Then once they are good at that, add screen aways. And keep building from their in progressions. I'm sure other coaches will chime in and there are lots of ways to go about building the motion offense.

I can always get the offense put in with one practice. But at the freshman and sophomore level it usually takes about 3 weeks before it's clicking pretty good (at our level we're reading screens, etc). The great thing about it is that every week the offense gets stronger and better. Where our opponents peak out and hit a wall. There is no limit to our motion and it gets better every week and we are at our best at the end of the year.

If you want I can email you our motion offense rules. It's super simple. At the freshman level we are undefeated and our EFG% is 57.5% and we score about .90 Points per Possession. At the sophomore level (we practice together and I coach games for both teams) we have lost only one game (by 3 points). They have a season EFG% of 54.5% and PPP of 1.

We of course get more practices than a youth coaches but I also know other youth coaches that run simple motion like this. So I know that a really simple motion will work. You just have to be a little patient and be committed to "player development".

Here are some other threads and articles that should help:

viewtopic.php?f=73&t=810

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/offense/motion-offense-build-up-drills.html

Having been in your situation I would suggest a couple of things.

First, make sure the kids understand that the purpose of offense is to SCORE. You score by getting a good shot. You get a good shot by cutting, passing, screening, etc. Sounds simple, but I'll bet if you asked your team what the purpose is they say "cut to the basket" or "set a screen" and the like. Hopefully they will stop running to run and move with a purpose -- to score.

Second, don't just tell them when they are here, do this. When they are here, do that. Teach them by asking them what the possiblities are. Set the situation for them: ok Jimmy, tommy has the ball here. You're here. Your defender is here. What could you do? Then work off of that. It takes longer, but I find they learn more effectively that way.

Good luck.

Thanks for all the feedback. This group is mostly 4th and 5th graders. Your comment about, "why are they cutting" was probably the most on target. They were cutting, because they were supposed to cut, instead of cutting to get open, want the ball to score. Same for the person receiving the pass, why... to pass it to the next person, then cut, instead of receive the pass, watch the cutter and read my defender to see if I can pass to the cutter or take my defender, then pass.
This might have been in part to some of my rules. I do not really like the 3 point shot and do not really feel kids at this age should be shooting three pointers, it ends up more a 3 point throw vs a 3 point shot for most. So I started with a rule that said if you are in the paint, think shot, then pass, then dribble. If you are not in the paint, think pass, then dribble. I really want the kids to learn to work the ball inside for better shots. I like an inside out game approach and maybe this has confused the kids. I just do not like watching a kid put their head down and drive to the basket against 1 on 2 or 3 odds, or get a pass and throw it up just to shoot, thinking score first.... But maybe that is more my problem and need to change. You can't win without scoring.
Also we are in a league that allows full court pressing the whole game.(I know, your going to say find another league, not really an optioin here) but we are working through it. Down side is we never really get into a half court game and get to work on our true motion offense, outside of breaking the press and going to the basket. We have some descent ballhandlers, but are not truly ready for quite this pressure yet. Plus these ok ballhadlers don't really have good use of their left hands. We have worked on most of the basic drills, v cut, back door, give and go.... they have these concepts down pretty well, again they get to use some while breaking the presses.
We have gone to a 1-2-2 press break, which shown improvement.
Sometimes I think more scrimmaging putting them in gametime situations might let them learn faster. It seems like when you teach one thing, they get into a "hypochondriac" type syndrome that is the only thing they can do...
I have started to back off on the no shots outside the paint (really more like 15 ft and in). I am ok with making the decision to pop a 15 ftr, when they are open...Still have some that think they are open with two guys on them and want to shoot it anyways... good thing is I have a deep bench with 12 kids to try and play in 10min running clock qtrs. So we have time to discuss this.

Here's my take on your situation. You're dealing with 4th/5th graders and I'm guessing they might be able to handle two concepts or rules per game on a consistent basis. Even at the 8th grade level, I try to only give my guys two concepts on offense and two on defense per game that I expect them to perform on a consistent basis. Sometimes I boil it down to one thing on offense and one on defense.

Bob Bigelow has a YT vid called How to Fix Youth Sports where he points out that kids are making two decisions every second when out on the court. In your situation, you have a full court press to deal with which adds even more decisions to the mix. Throw in kids who are still in a developmental stage and things can appear to be moving at warp speed in their minds.

The other night, I was in one of those gyms that had a nice echo. Two 7th grade rec teams were playing and both coaches were pacing the sidelines yelling out instructions every 5 seconds. Parents were yelling instructions from the stands. How a kid could even hear a word out on the court was beyond me.

The "hypochondriac" mentality is pretty common in developmental players, simply because of their current skill level. Sometimes, you have to pick your poison and leave the rest. If it were me, I'd try to focus on a few fundamentals each game and emphasize those.

Curious? Is this a rec league?

Thanks for the response. I keep telling myself to be patient and only look at the good and the improvement being made in certain areas, not the whole game at once. At times the light seems to be flashing at the end of the tunnel, then other times we are standing on the tracks watching the train come at us.
I have mostly focused on getting them to not try and dribble through the press, look to the opposite cutter shooting the middle, read the defender at half court trying to trap and go over the top to our man at half court, or go right back to their outlet man which was the inbounder. Maybe that is too many decisions? Beyond just my focus being just to break the press, I have not really set much for the half court offense, since we rarely get into it, normally it is either fast break offense, turnovers or they get into their 5 out.
I guess you could call it a rec league, we are a small school and play other small schools and sometimes some bigger schools will come on saturdays to play round robins. This is my first year here and maybe they will be receptive to rule change recommendations for next year.

It's a shame that you have to deal with a full court press at this age. Sounds like you're teaching the right things to beat a press. I think you were onto something in a previous post about creating "game-like" scenarios in practice. Maybe showing them the gaps in zone presses. In other words, setting up mock presses in practice for them to see (e.g. 1-2-2, 2-2-1, etc.) and asking them to find the holes/gaps. It won't take long for them to see where they need to be positioned. I wonder if setting some simple picks for your ball handler would help with beating the press?

Which is why a lot of us on this site disagree with presses at the younger levels. The kids never get a chance to learn (and practice) the fundamentals since they're too busy worrying about a press or running up/down the court chasing each other.

I read this and ask myself.... who the heck is running this league? That they would allow pressing at this age... t hey can hardly handle the ball or make strong passes...... thats the winning at all cost mentality. That teaches the kids absolutely nothing. As Rob stated, many of the coaches on this site disagree with pressing, zone defenses etc.

Play m2m, that will teach them how to play the game, run a simple motion offense, the 5 out on here is good for kids your age..... Those other guys forgot that its not about winning, its ALL ABOUT having FUN and learning how to play the game.