The four players the Bucks acquired from the Miami Heat in the Giannis trade—Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel’el Ware, and Kasparas Jakucionis—may already be a step ahead in knowing Taylor Jenkins’ offence when training camp hits.

Before the 2024-25 season, a relatively unknown assistant named Noah LaRoche was hired by Jenkins as the Memphis Grizzlies’ Head of Player Development. The Grizzlies had finished dead last in offensive efficiency the season prior (granted, there were also a heap of injuries to key players that impacted that). Injuries aside, though, Memphis clearly wanted to try something new. LaRoche—even though he was not some high-ranking assistant at the time—was entrusted with installing an offence that would deliver that change.

And boy, did he think outside the box.

You see, the offence that LaRoche installed wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill playbook that he nicked from another system. No, this offence not only stood out from the rest of the NBA but also from the greater basketball world because, well, it wasn’t even really an “offence” in the traditional sense; it was more of a system that championed speed, spacing, driving, and basketball IQ. There were no play-calls. To use a classic Budenholzer-ism, it was basically “structured randomness” that also happened to deprioritise screens—both on and off-ball.

To see what I mean, watch this video:

Fascinating, right? So why the zag? It’s a combination of things. Firstly, there’s the most basic idea of just catching teams off guard by doing something different than what they’ve seen for years and years. But mostly, this is a personnel-based thing: if majority of a team’s key players have below-average shooting ability but above-average IQ, driving ability, craft, and ball skills, then an offence that prioritises the latter will probably be better suited to that team.

The 2024 Grizzlies fitted this mould. Sure, they had Desmond Bane, who is a great shooter, but overall, this was not some team of snipers. What they had in spades was players with these aforementioned traits, such as Ja Morant, Brandon Clarke, Jaren Jackson Jr., Jake LaRavia, Jaylen Wells, and Marcus Smart. Well, it worked a treat. Memphis finished the next season with the sixth-best offence in the NBA.

It’s fascinating to take a step back and think more conceptually about basketball every once in a while. Why bring four bodies into an action if you can get to the rim one-on-one? Is a pick-and-roll really the only way to draw two to the ball and generate an open shot, or could you achieve the same thing from a drive and kick? As basketball consumers, we sometimes get so used to viewing and understanding basketball through a certain lens that we forget to think outside the box.

From a mental standpoint, this is a system that caters to heady, instinctual players who can recognise patterns and cues. Someone driving baseline means another must cut from the 45; someone cutting one pass away means the ballhandler might have an opportunity to drive right behind them; someone attacking to the middle means the big must empty and get to the opposite short corner. When you really boil it down, it’s a system with a few basic principles:

Play fastAlways keep the court spreadDon’t hold onto the ball; make quick decisions and commit to themDon’t fall asleep off the ball; you will get caught outCut with the view that you may not get the ball, but it could create an opportunity for a teammateAim for layups and three pointers on most possessions

Cool, but what’s this got to do with Miami?

With that out of the way, let’s talk about how the Miami Heat came to implement this offence. Obviously, Taylor Jenkins was dismissed by the Grizzlies with nine games remaining in the 2024-25 season (even though the team made the playoffs!)—Noah LaRoche was a casualty alongside him. This also happened coincide with the Heat getting utterly destroyed by the Cavaliers in the 2024-25 playoffs, losing in a sweep by a combined margin of 122 points.

“I hope that players became better from it, but damn, it was humbling,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after the worst loss in his 17 seasons. “This series was humbling.”

“Really no excuses for it,” Tyler Herro said. “It’s embarrassing.”

Miami came out of that series knowing their offence had gone completely stale and that something had to change, so they hired—you guessed it—Noah LaRoche and had him implement that same read-and-react offence. Once again, it got results. BasketNews’ Vukasin Nedeljkovic did a great breakdown of how the their offence shifted last season:

Miami ran approximately 12 to 15 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions, accounting for only 5% of its total play types.

Historically, no team has relied less on the pick-and-roll as a primary action.

Even when factoring in both ball handlers and roll men, the action accounts for only seven percent of their offense–a stark contrast to a league where it remains the dominant half-court engine.

Instead, Miami’s offensive profile is built around entirely different sources of production.

Spot-up situations account for roughly 34% of their offense, transition nearly 25%, and isolation around 9%, while cuts, offensive rebounds, and putbacks fill in the margins.

Traditional structured elements like post-ups, off-screen actions, and the pick-and-roll serve only as complementary tools rather than foundational actions.

The Heat started the season 14-7. They went from 27th to first in pace, from 24th to first in field goal attempts, and from 21st to 12th in offensive rating. Now, their defence declined as a result—ninth to 14th—but on balance, you take those results any day of the week.

Ironically, Miami last season just happened to have players very similar to what the Grizzlies had in 2024. Bam Adebayo, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Davion Mitchell, Pelle Larsson, Dru Smith, Andrew Wiggins… these guys all fit that style of play.

I should note that opponents did start to “figure the Heat out” in the second half of the season. They lost 10 of their final 15 games and then fell to the Hornets in the Play-In Tournament (though we should note that Miami sustained some injuries in that game too). It remains to be seen if this type of offence would consistently survive in a playoff setting, when the game becomes inherently slower—the Thunder swept the Grizzlies in the 2024 playoffs, but firstly, it’s the Thunder; secondly, Ja Morant got injured halfway through the series; and lastly, Games 3 and 4 were very close—but it’s an interesting way to attack the regular season.

Anyway, Milwaukee traded for four guys who played last season under the same system that Taylor Jenkins led in Memphis during his final year there. Moreover, the Bucks happen to have a fair few holdovers who can play this sort of basketball as well. Maybe we see a LaRoche-inspired offence in Milwaukee this season?

Speaking of the Heat recruits, vote on this week’s Reacts poll: