What stands out and what separates NBA teams' offensive identities?

How do you define identity for a basketball team, especially offensively? Is the NBA simply a run, screen and shoot league with no variation? Does every team play the same?

In many ways, basketball is a simple game. There is one ball. Create advantages. Make shots. Score more points than the other team. But there has been great consternation when it comes to the game recently.

“As you know, we have a competition committee. It’s something we talk about all the time. And if there’s a way to improve the game, believe me, we’ll be all over it,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said at All-Star Weekend in response to a question about the wave of criticism that has seemed to come with how basketball has been played in the 2020s. “I’ve also learned, having been around this game for a long time, not to overreact. … I think about 25 years ago was the last time we were in the Bay Area for an All-Star Game. The state of the game then, when many people were saying it was too physical, we were too dependent on the dunk, that players weren’t sufficiently skilled — the fact now that you can’t play in this league unless you can shoot, that even 7-footers have to be able to shoot these days and have to be able to shoot at long range, I actually think that’s a beautiful thing.”

Just because teams know what opponents want to do does not make it easy to stop them. And within the macro goal of every team aiming to get the most out of its possessions come specific qualities that make each squad different.

This season, I’ve spoken with several coaches and players about offensive approach and identity. There may be a prevailing narrative that every team plays the same style, and as a whole, the league is playing faster, shooting more 3s and crashing the offensive glass harder. But to say every team plays the same is inaccurate.

“You have to play to the strengths of your personnel,” Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “I don’t think the league and play style is as homogenized as people make it out to be.”

There are many ways to explore offensive identity. To do so, at the most basic level, you have to look at who each team’s primary playmaker is, how each team wants to play when it isn’t running pick-and-roll and how often a team shoots in a certain area relative to the rest of the league.

Here is a breakdown of every NBA team’s touch leader, preferred play style (outside of pick-and-rolls, spot-ups and transitions) and where each team ranks highest in percentage of points scored among the three shot areas (3s, paint and midrange).

And here is a breakdown of team rankings in pick-and-roll volume, drives, passes and pace. The only team that isn’t in the top 10 or bottom five in one of pick-and-roll volume, drives, passes or pace are the New York Knicks (23rd in pace).

* — Green = top 10 in category; peach = median; blue = bottom 5 in category

Including this season, eight different teams have led the NBA in offensive efficiency since 2017, and no team has repeated as the league’s best offense since the Golden State Warriors in 2015-16 and 2016-17. Naturally, the place to start discussing offensive identity in 2025 is with the Eastern Conference-leading Cleveland Cavaliers, a squad that leads the league in offensive efficiency with 121.9 points per 100 possessions.

To pick-and-roll or not, that is the question

At the All-Star break, the Cavaliers led the NBA in all pick-and-roll possessions (including passes) with 44.8 per game, according to Synergy. The Cavs are bludgeoning teams in that action, averaging 1.09 points per possession in pick-and-rolls, second only to the Knicks. As Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson explains it, Cleveland knows what it has in two ball-dominant All-Star guards (point guard Darius Garland and shooting guard Donovan Mitchell) to go with two quality rolling bigs (first-time All-Star power forward Evan Mobley and center Jarrett Allen).

“It’s playing to your strengths, right?” Atkinson said on New Year’s Eve before a road win against the Lakers. “We got two elite ballhandlers in the pick-and-roll, and we got elite bigs, right? So, it fits our kind of core four — our top four guys. … Taking all of those characteristics of our best players, you know, we would have been crazy not to be a heavy pick-and-roll team.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum from a team like Cleveland is the Memphis Grizzlies. While the Cavaliers spam pick-and-roll to the point of running it almost once for every minute of a 48-minute game, the Grizzlies are down at 21.2 pick-and-roll possessions per game, 4.5 fewer than any other team in the league.

“They play a certain way, and they’re unwavering in how they play, particularly offensively with their concepts,” Redick said before a December visit from the Grizzlies. “They’re going to get middle. And they’re going to get into their wheel concept. And they’re going to mess you up when they get middle. And those guys just do it, over and over again. Multiple times a possession, multiple possessions in a row.”

Last year, the Grizzlies took something of a gap year, suiting up 33 NBA players and finishing dead last in points per game (105.8). This season, the Grizzlies are the only team averaging more points than the Cavaliers, soaring to 123.3 points per game at the All-Star break. And while Memphis may run the fewest pick-and-rolls, the Grizzlies are the fastest-paced team and lead the league in drives. Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins understood that last season’s injuries, particularly to star point guard Ja Morant, shouldn’t restrict the team from re-imagining its scheme.

“Can we try to keep the defense distorted without always having predictable pick-and-roll combinations — still utilizing that to create advantages, but can we use space?” Jenkins said last month. “I talked a lot about that to begin the season, being an invasion sport. How can we adopt that mentality, just constantly seeking space, making sure we have five guys that are in attack mode, whether that’s in the full court and the half court. You see a lot of our movement. And then, at the end of the day, we want to create quality shots. I think we’re doing that more than we’ve done in the past.”

A typical Memphis possession features a shot within the first six seconds of the shot clock. Redick noted that when his video team put together a scout on the Grizzlies, most of the possessions did not have a set play: “It’s literally transition, transition, random, transition, transition, random.”

While Thunder point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads an isolation-heavy offense that ranks second to only the Grizzlies in drives per game, Oklahoma City, atop the West with a 44-10 record, ranks in the top 10 in pick-and-roll possessions and in the bottom 10 in passes per game. Morant’s Grizzlies don’t make much time for pick-and-roll while ranking 14th in passes per game.

“It’s a lot of movement,” Morant said. “As the ball moves, everybody else moves. Playing a lot more off of each other. I think we’re averaging a lot more assists, and we’re playing way faster.”

The stars and the sun: Who gets the touches?

The NBA is a star-driven league, but the responsibilities of those stars can change as their team changes.

Minnesota Timberwolves shooting guard Anthony Edwards has had to adjust this season. He is no longer playing with Karl-Anthony Towns, a 40-percent 3-point shooter and an elite play-finisher who allowed Edwards to play with space even with center Rudy Gobert on the floor.

Now, when the Wolves are fully healthy, Edwards is typically teamed with power forward Julius Randle, who commands a few more touches than Towns and is a more capable passer but is not nearly as gifted a shooter or finisher (Randle hasn’t played since Jan. 30 due to a groin injury). After a particularly frustrating night in Minnesota against Towns’ Knicks in December, Edwards lamented about Minnesota’s lack of identity offensively:

Anthony Edwards on Wolves offense: “We don’t have no identity. We know I’mma shoot a bunch of shots. We know Ju gonna shoot a bunch of shots. That’s all we know. We don’t really know anything else. It’s not on the coaches at all. It’s on us.”

— Jon Krawczynski (@JonKrawczynski) December 20, 2024

On this Minnesota team, Edwards may be a big guard, but he is the touch leader and primary playmaker. The Timberwolves are a bottom-10 pace team and one that plays in isolation often. Edwards operates a lot like James Harden, whom current Minnesota coach Chris Finch coached as an assistant to Kevin McHale with the Houston Rockets. Before a game where Finch changed his starting lineup to replace veteran point guard Mike Conley with former Knick Donte DiVincenzo, a nominal shooting guard, I asked Finch about how he defines a team’s identity. (That lineup change was short-lived due to DiVincenzo’s toe injury.)

“What they repeatedly do, obviously, that’s one,” Finch said before a win against the LA Clippers last month. “How hard do they play, where does that manifest itself? Is it in transition? Is it on the glass? Is it everywhere? Is it physicality? And then, what do they go into when it matters most?”

When it comes to touches, though, only one player in the league averages more than 100 touches per game, according to Second Spectrum. That is reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokić, the center of the Denver Nuggets and leader of a team that averages the second-fewest pick-and-roll possessions per game (25.7) and the fewest drives per game (34.8 per game, per Second Spectrum).

Jokic averages 104.8 touches per game; the only other players at over 90 touches per game are Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton (93.8), All-Star Detroit Pistons point guard Cade Cunningham (92.2), Philadelphia 76ers point guard Tyrese Maxey (91.6) and All-Star Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young (93.6). Denver is a top-five pace team that averages the most post-ups and the most elbow touches in the league. That’s where Jokić seeks out cutting teammates with regularity. His presence is the definition of not only building an offensive identity, but building a roster around one player.

“What you love about Nikola, and for him to be the centerpiece of everything we do, is that it’s not just about Nikola,” Denver coach Michael Malone said in December. “We’re not asking him to go out there and score 45 points a night. We play through Nikola because he’s going to make the right read every time. And he has the ability to make everyone around him better. And you see that with different teams. … We use (Nikola) in every way, shape or form possible, because he is the cornerstone to everything we do on both ends of the floor, to be quite honest. And everybody that we bring in those doors should be somebody that can complement Nikola and his skill set.”

Same shots, different processes

The final piece to team offensive identity is shot location. There are three levels of scoring from the field: the paint, the midrange and the 3-point line. Teams score between 35.6 percent (Celtics) and 49.3 percent (Nuggets) of their points in the paint. In the midrange, it varies from 3.9 percent (Utah Jazz) to 11.1 percent (Sacramento Kings). Teams range from scoring 29.2 percent (Nuggets) of their points from 3s to 45.4 percent (Celtics).

“Take 3s — most of the time bad 3s — and everybody just crash,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said when asked about whether the league takes too many 3s. “Yeah, that’s basketball. That’s the new basketball right now.”

After 3-point convo, had to ask Tyronn Lue about Kawhi Leonard helping Clippers midrange

T. Lue mentioned Kawhi getting to his spots and how he wants more midrange from James Harden.

I told T. Lue Harden has made half of non-paint 2s (16/32)

T. Lue: “Might be 2 for 4 then…”😂 pic.twitter.com/k5PJrPi9cO

— Law Murray 🔜 (@LawMurrayTheNU) December 18, 2024

But even Lue’s team operates differently this season. The Clippers are still a heavy isolation team. But with Harden, Norman Powell and Ivica Zubac taking the majority of the shots instead of the departed Paul George and a rehabilitating Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers score 45.9 percent of their points in the paint (fifth in NBA).

“It’s a copycat league; everyone tries to do the same thing,” Lue said. “But if you don’t have the personnel to do that, I don’t know if you should play that style of basketball. Whatever is good for the league, I’m pretty sure that a lot of great coaches in the league can adjust and play a certain style that you need to play. We’ve seen this time and time again throughout the course of the NBA, since I’ve been in the NBA. Coaches have been able to adjust and play the style you need to play.”

Before Leonard’s return, the Clippers scored only 4.6 percent of their points from midrange (24th in NBA). Last season, only 43.6 percent of LA’s points came in the paint (ranked 19th) while it ranked 11th in percentage of points scored from midrange (7.8). Since Leonard returned, the Clippers score 7.5 percent of their points from midrange, ranking seventh in the NBA. But Leonard acknowledged that it makes more sense for teams to have players shoot 3s, even though competency from midrange is helpful for a balanced offense.

“There’s always something to complain about,” Leonard told The Athletic last month. “Why would a guy shoot a midrange shot if they can make a 3 at 40 percent? That’s how the game is. And the guys aren’t just about to drive and play a box offense the whole time.”

When you include the two-month postseason, this is only the midpoint of the NBA campaign. Offensive identity has to change and evolve as teams go through winning and losing streaks, injuries and major transactions, especially the kind that changes who a team plays through. Teams are always searching, questioning and seeking to validate the way they play. Opponents and defenses get used to one thing, learn to take it away and force offenses to adjust.

There is a lot more basketball to see, and much more will unfold as the games increase in importance. If you know where to look, you will see how the league still has a healthy level of stylistic diversity.

“I’m never going to say there isn’t room for improvement,” Silver said. “We’ll continue to look at it and study it, but I am happy with the state of the game right now.”

(Top photo of Donovan Mitchell and Nikola Jokić: Isaiah J. Downing / Imagn Images)