ROCHESTER, Mich. -- Basketball is a complex game, but building a basketball team is even harder. On paper, team building appears to be an easy concept. When constructing a team at any level of basketball the terms should be simple right? Get the five best players possible on the court and you will have the best chance at winning. However, putting five really good players on the floor together is not always equivalent to team success. 

When building a team, you must find ways to compliment and maximize the current players on your roster’s skill sets along with future additions. If players X and Y are both ball dominant scorers, how are they maximizing the other three players on the floor’s potential? Or how are they maximizing eachother’s potential? A variety of great players have different styles and skill sets that make them great. So, when a team does get all five players on the floor whose strengths complement each others strengths and hide their weaknesses, then you have maximized your talent as a team, and doing so will give you the best chance to win.

This concept of maximizing a team's potential goes further than just recruiting, drafting, or free agent signing. Maximizing potential can be as small of a concept as the plays a team runs. If a team is running this play, why should they run said play? Whose strengths are we playing off of in order to make this the most effective play possible? Or even in practice, when coaches build a practice plan for the day, it’s important to ask self evaluation questions like how is this drill benefiting the team in the future?

Former Hilliard Bradley standout lead guard Braden Norris only had four Division I basketball offers coming out of high school last season. Despite an impressive list of high school accolades, standing under 6 feet tall and not being an elite athlete rarely ever screams D1 ball player.

However, after going through his film it was clear that Oakland offered the former all state selection knowing that he would be able to maximize the potential of his teammates. In the latest addition of College Film Room, I will be breaking down Norris’ game and how he elevates the performance of the Golden Grizzly players on the offensive side of the ball. 

The freshman has an outstanding Synergy statistical profile. Synergy Sports stats allow coaches, scouts, etc to find out who the most efficient players in the country are. Calculating each player’s points per possession and ranking them in a percentile among all collegiate players at the NCAA level.

Points per possession is a simple advanced stat for tracking offensive efficiency, the more PPP a player averages the more efficient they are. The following chart shows Norris’ offensive rank among D1 players and NCAA percentile in the following possession types. This table provides a view of his offensive identity at the college level as well. 

It should be effortless to tell from the chart that Norris is one of the best shooters in college basketball.

Oakland plays at a very slow pace and a large portion of their offensive action is run to set up their leading scorer Xavier Hill-Mais in the low and mid post. The floor spacing ability that the Golden Grizzlies surround him with is essential.

Normally positioning Norris on the strong side which prevents any kind of double team or even attention to be drawn to Hill-Mais from that side of the floor because of Norris’ lights out shooting ability.

In this clip against Northern Kentucky, you can see how quickly Norris can make opposing teams pay when giving Hill-Mais too much attention, as he buries a catch and shoot three from well beyond NBA range.

This spot up shooting / floor spacing value and his ability to get his shot off in a moment's notice, gives Oakland’s leading scorer either an opportunity to work in space or make a simple strong side read to Norris, which elevates his offensive value in the low and mid post. 

Oakland is an offensive team that lacks self creation, despite having a surplus of tremendous shooters, a majority of them need to be ran off some kind of offensive action in order to be successful scorers.

Coming from Hilliard Bradley, there is no shortage of basketball IQ in the freshman’s game. Norris applies his IQ in order to be an exceptional improviser off the ball, which leads to open opportunities that can be created without needing the basketball in his hands.

This can be as simple as him fading into the weakside corner which happens here once delivering the ball to the wing on a curl.

Or relocating after making a great pass once getting into the lane on the weakside wing. Even though he misses, his shot creation off the ball is necessary for Oakland who struggles to consistently get self creation equity out of their perimeter players. 

The last aspect of Norris’ off ball game that needs to be broken down is how well he performs within Oakland’s offensive scheme. When they are not isolating Hill-Mais in the post, there is constant movement off the ball looking to create easy looks shooting off movement for their perimeter players.

Taking on a majority of Oakland’s handling duties, we are unable to see this frequently from Norris, but when given the chance he has been wildly successful in this area ranking in the 98th percentile on Synergy via off screen possessions.

The guard could write a book on how to properly work off screens for easy points. Here he is working a down screen, rubbing off the screen as tight as possible, then initiating contact to set up his off ball movement, and is always ready to shoot showing perfectly balance which lets him get his shot up instantaneously. 

Despite not being a player that is involved in a ton of high usage action scoring the basketball, the former Jaguar standout is easily the most valuable creator for his teammates on the roster.

Boasting the fifth highest assist to turnover ratio in Division I basketball (100 assist minimum), he sets the table for his teammates and puts them in positions to score and score efficiently.

One of his best playmaking attributes is his decisiveness as a passer in the ball screen game. Here he is working a ball screen and finds big man Brad Brechting for a finish at the rim.

Even though this is such a simple dump off, for a freshman to make a read like that out of a ball screen to somebody who is not the screener is impressive. This aides a player like Bretching who is an outstanding finisher, but not a major part of their offense. Bretching can score efficiently around the courtesy of Norris’ playmaking value. 

His low usage passing value is also extremely beneficial to Oakland. By making great low usage passes that can quickly shift a defense, it gives a non creator a chance to attack off the dribble.

Along with setting up players with easy looks down low. Here Norris makes a beautiful cross court pass to the weakside of the floor. Since so much attention is drawn to Hill-Mais, it opens up a pass to his teammate spotting up to the corner who can attack off the dribble and get a look at the rim. 

Like I previously mentioned, Braden Norris is not your typical Division I collegiate basketball player. He will not be on a highlight reel for breaking somebody's ankles or dunking on somebody, but he is essential to the success of Oakland’s offense.

Without any shot creators on their roster, Norris has to step into this role and create shots for both himself and others. While it may not be in the most conventional way, it elevates the performance of his teammates. His shooting allows their leading scorer Xavier Hill-Mais to be comfortable creating his own shot providing floor spacing from the strong and weakside of the court.

Norris can create a shot by improvising his own off ball movement, along with moving without the ball and scoring effectively within Oakland’s offensive system, and lastly he can provide bigs like Brechting and perimeter players with open shots at the rim and driving lanes with his playmaking. 

Datrey Long (Fr. G, Urbana)

Oakland University Athletics