Basketball's Box Offense (Spalding Sports Library)

Rating:
Summary: If you can read it, you don't need it
Review: Herb may be a great coach, but he's not a great writer. Rather than explaining the box offense, this book cheers for it, talks about how great it is against various defenses, lists all the moves you should be able to make to make it work, and never once describes what it is. Or why it's called the box offense, or how it compares to other offenses. Or what any of the moves you have to be able to explain are. There are indeed hundreds of diagrams, with descriptions that barely match.

I was able to get some information out of this, but only with a lot of digging and cursing. But I'm a beginner at coaching - I'm not a pro or big ten college player. If you understand all of the terms he tosses out without definition, you probably are one of these, and probably know all the stuff in the book already.

Particularly frustrating are sections which make you think a description is coming, but you get more lists, such as in the section titled "Explanations of each move":

"Handback or Pass and Return to the Ball - A very good tactic to use when you want to set up a lob play, screen-and-roll, clearout or simply relieve pressure on the man with the ball. Another of Magic's moves to run his opponent ragged." Now, there is a diagram later which helps describe this, but it's *later*. When you first read this section, it's maddeningly empty of information.

I have never before been so frustrated as to want to return a book, until I read this one. I didn't dig into it until it was far too late. You, however, have been warned.