The Cross Over Movement Blog

Last week, a friend and I were talking about the similarities between basketball and soccer. I often use soccer concepts when thinking about basketball and teach several skills based on the way soccer coaches teach a similar skill. Then, in this weekend’s NY Times, an article appeared titled “Soccer as NBA Building Block.”

Tex Winter is not a soccer guy, either, but he, too, knows plenty about fundamentals. Winter, an 86-year-old consultant for the Lakers who has served alongside Coach Phil Jackson for years, sees the congruency between his triangle offense and the triangular formations that are fundamental to soccer. Jackson’s teams have used the triangle strategy to win a combined nine N.B.A. titles in Chicago and Los Angeles.

“Soccer is a lot like basketball,” Winter said. “It’s a game of geometry. Spacing, distances, direct lines — they operate on these angles and reverse sides of the court with the ball, just as we would in the triangle. Not being a soccer coach, I can’t really address it with intelligence, but a lot of the concepts are similar.”

The article also mentions the transfer of skills between sports, an argument I make when I argue against early specialization, but one which often falls on deaf ears.

“When you grow up playing soccer, you obviously carry that over to other sports,” said Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, who lived in Italy from age 6 through 13. “I think it has helped me tremendously.”

Foot skills, naturally, apply well to basketball. Nash once said that when he began to play basketball after years of playing soccer, it almost felt unfair to be able to use his hands. Hakeem Olajuwon, who will go into the Basketball Hall of Fame this year, has credited soccer during his days growing up in Nigeria for his exemplary footwork in the post.

But there are other, more subtle applications. Mehmet Okur, the All-Star center for Utah, was a forward in a Turkish professional soccer club’s youth program before growing into a goalkeeper and eventually a basketball player. Using his body to seal off a defender, moving without the ball and rebounding are skills he said he first gleaned from soccer. Turiaf, a reserve forward, said his constant talking to teammates on the court stemmed from his days as a goalkeeper growing up in Martinique.

What really catches Winter’s eye are the occasions when Radmanovic and Vujacic will use a basketball to perform soccer tricks with their feet.

“I’m amazed what they’ll do just messing around,” Winter said. “It helps their footwork, their agility and their defense.”