Exhibit A for why I hate giving offensive players an advantage on closeouts or stance.
First off – I get it. The Storm won the WNBA Championship last night, so it is not conducive to use a clip showing the eventual WNBA Champions getting beat on one possession. Not only are they winning by 16 at the time; they also end up winning the whole damn thing. My overarching argument is less about pushing baseline or packline versus open stance closeouts in general.
That being said philosophically I struggle with the shade baseline concept. Admittedly, I am a “Packline” enthusiast. I tend to believe in the positioning being your help to deter drives and prioritizing everything to be about ball pressure and contested jump shots, preferably midrange. Unless, you are going Press Virginia I think that is the majority of coaches objectives defensively. Where I tend to differ is giving an angle to an offensive player to either the baseline or the middle. I just think that good offensive players will exploit windows given. This clip is just a small, albeit isolated, example of what could happen when inviting the baseline drive.
Coach's Climb 