Putting the wheels in motion: UK head coach John Calipari brings new offense to Cats

Basketball traditionalists say a normal offensive set is full of passes, screens, cuts and then, finally, a shot. However, that’s not the case anymore in what is widely considered the Mecca of college basketball — Lexington.

With the hiring of John Calipari, a new system is on the horizon.

The Dribble-Drive Motion offense, known as the DDM, involves four perimeter players and one post player. It is a high-scoring offense that is based on beating your player off the dribble, rather than cuts or screens.

The second unconventional notion of the offense involves the one post player, who instead of running to the ball side, dives to the weak side, leaving the ball handler with an open driving lane.

DDM was first introduced to Calipari in October of 2003, while he was out to dinner with Vance Walberg, then a junior college head coach from Fresno, Calif., who observed Calipari’s practice at Memphis earlier in the day.

A simple question from Calipari quickly turned into a diagram using the pepper shaker as the basket, white sugar packets as the offense and the Sweet’n Low as the defense. But, more importantly, it sparked a new system, one that would help Calipari win 30 games for four consecutive years.

“You have to give Coach Cal a ton of credit,” Walberg said. “Most coaches that are as successful as he was would never change their system.”

But the system, which started 13 years ago while Walberg was at Clovis West High School, is to let the best players be the best players, said Walberg, the founder of DDM.

Instead of the traditional way of calling set plays and running pick and rolls, Walberg said the DDM puts the ball in the hands of your best players and lets basketball be played at a pure level.

“If you have someone like a Dwayne Wade or Kobe Bryant, why would you want to run a pick and roll? You’ll get double-teamed and essentially the play gets run for someone else,” Walberg said. “People didn’t like the offense at first, but eventually I figured this was the offense of the future.”

UK fans are looking forward to the future next year with the DDM — and the players that could be a part of it. With Wednesday being signing day and rumors of a recruiting class that could include John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Daniel Orton and Jon Hood, UK could see a quick transition.

Walberg said it usually takes a year and a half until the players fully understand the new system and for a full transition to take place. However, he said with a recruiting class like that, along with the possibility of Patrick Patterson and Jodie Meeks returning, UK could be a dangerous team next year.

“It’s not even a question, if you get a John Wall, Meeks, Patterson and DeMarcus the transition will go quicker and that’ll be a team to watch,” Walberg said. “Patterson will open a lot inside while Meeks will have the ability when he is hot to take over a game in this system.”

Walberg said the other thing DDM has the ability to do is recruit because of the freedom it gives a player. Calipari has proven the DDM can recruit by drawing in what was the No. 1 recruiting class this year while he was at Memphis. Since his short time at UK, he has raised the Cats recruiting class to No. 4 on Scout.com.

During his introductory news conference, Calipari said he knew he was here “because (he) can recruit the best of the best,” something Big Blue Nation has high hopes for.

However, Walberg does have some advice for Big Blue Nation: Don’t expect UK to be perfect the first game of next year.

“Be patient,” Walberg said. “When you first start, get your hard hats on because balls are going to be flying everywhere. It most likely won’t be pretty at first, unless you have good enough players.”