Last spring Coach Walberg released three new Dribble Drive DVD ses through Championship Productions, and after having used them (and a lot of other sources) to write my last book, it’s time for a review. The DVD’s released were:

Advanced Dribble-Drive Offense: Zone & Transition Game, $119.99

100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense, $79.99

Walberg also released a defensive DVD set at the same time:

Vance Walberg: Half-Court Pressure Defensive System, 79.99

I don’t personally use Walberg’s defensive sets, so I’ll leave the defensive DVD out of the review.

See the reviews below.

The Advanced Dribble-Drive Offense: Zone & Transition Game

The Advanced Dribble-Drive Offense: Zone & Transition Game set contains three DVDs, and the contents, according to Canpionship Productions, are:

• New Innovations since Coach Walberg’s original Dribble-Drive presentations
• How to attack a Zone with the Dribble Drive and some of Coach Walberg’s favorite zone plays
• See how to build and drill your players into effectively using the Transition Game into the Dribble-Drive attack
• Over 6 hours of detailed teaching points and techniques to improve the whole offensive attack

There are some interesting things on this set for the Dribble Drive vs. man-to-man defense, as Walberg greatly expands the transition game and explains his Dribble Drive Offense in greater detail. With him for the whole DVD he’s got a mix of players who are mostly unfamiliar with the Dribble Drive, which is great, as they tend to make the same mistakes your own players will.

The transition game part is particularly good, explaining in detail how to make the transition offense work for you. Coach Walberg goes over everything from how to inbound the ball, where to have your wings look for the ball, and what your options are depending on which part of the court your point guard takes the ball up. This transition game is an integral part of the Dribble Drive, and it has the added advantage that it eliminates the need for spending time on teaching a separate fast break system.

Another interesting part fo this DVD set is a long section on how Walberg has his teams rebound. His philosophy is very aggressive, and it incorporates ways to get easy shots for your best shooters right out of the offensive rebound. It’s probably not for everyone, but just seeing it made me question my own rebounding strategy.

Another interesting thing coach Walberg spends some time on is how to make the offense a 1-guard front offense. This isn’t so much new, but it’s explained a lot better than on the original DVD set, and it works really well.

Walberg also adds the Special gap – the S-gap – to the offense. Personally I’m having difficulties making this work, possibly because we always take away middle penetration, but I’ve heard from other coaches that it works great for them, especially if defenses aren’t too disciplined. I’ll leave the jury out on the S-gap.

As far as adding things to the Dribble Drive man offense this is about it. Although there are actually lots of things to add (see below for the 100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense DVD set review), Walberg doesn’t expand much on the things he showed on his first DVD set, as far as man-to-man defense goes on this set.

However, the Walberg Zone offense is truly brilliant, in my opinion, and Walberg spends a lot of time on how to attack zones. He takes two separate sets and combines them into a cohesive offense, and spends a lot of time on the little details. Everything is well explained, and Walberg offers some true insight into how to make the zone offense work. The one thing I’d love to hear more about is how to attack different zones with the offense, but most experienced coaches would be able to work this out for themselves. I’ve written a short Zone Offense eBook which details this offense along with some zone plays I’ve used myself, which fit right into Walbergs offense.

Walberg ends up talking about sopme of the questions he’s had about the offense over the years, and showing some game video, showing his concepts in game situations. This will clear up some issues for a lot of coaches, and is a good source of inspiration, although it doesn’t reach the level of he transition and zone offense parts.

All in all the zone offense, the rebounding and the fast break is well worth the price of the DVD set, and there’s a bit more on there too. However, for people looking for true insight into the man-to-man Dribble Drive Attack I actually think the Drills and Sets DVD set is better.

100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense

The 100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense DVD set contains:

• Get individual Dribble Drive skill development drills for the guards, wings, and posts
• Get an insiders look at the team breakdown drills used to build and teach the dribble drive action
• See the different series of plays and action from the rack from the Drop, Drag & Rack zones.

For pure Dribble Drive value the companion DVD set 100 Drills & Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense is actually of better value than the Advanced set.

The 2-disc set isn’t very well named, as there are nowhere near 100 drills and no traditional 5-man sets on the DVDs. There are, however, some good post drills, and a few perimeter drills teaching 2 and 3-man reads of the offense, but only if you count the reads on the 3-man drills are there anywheere near 100 drills/sets/reads/variations to pick up.

On the first DVD of the set are individual drills. For the guard and forward positions this is good, without being great. You’ll pick up a few things, but I didn’t pick up a lot of new drills. The post drills are better, and I like the drills, and how Walberg stresses the concept of the jump-jump (jumping to shoot and immediately re-jumping for the rebound/tip-in). After watching this DVD I was a bit disappointed, and actually put off watching the second DVD.

However, the drills and the reads on the second DVD have been some of the most inspirational things I’ve seen while researching my newest book, and I think other experienced Dribble Drive coaches will feel the same. In the 3-man drills Walberg goes over all the little cuts and reads which really makes the offense click.

He covers the details of things like the double drag, the pick & roll, the 414 entry, the Quick, Dive, Drop 5, Wheel and X-cut. Just be aware that for coaches who are just starting out with the Dribble Drive getting much out of these drills and reads might be difficult. Walberg presumes that you understand the offense pretty well while talking about these things, as he doesn’t show them in a 5-man setting. Instead he casually drops the information into the reads drills, and you’ll have to be pretty on-the-ball to get it all the first time you watch it.

For me it has been the best DVD of any Dribble Drive DVD set I’ve seen, but if you’re not already familiar with the offense it could be very confusing not seeing the concepts in a 5-man setting. I had to call coach Walberg to clear up a few things after seeing the DVD, but for experienced Dribble Drive coaches I’d definitely recommend it.

Conclusion

Overall the DVD sets are worth their price. I only have a few points of criticism.

Firstly the DVDs are not recorded in wide screen format. I think this format is the standard now and in some places it would be very usefull (say, so you’re able to see all the players on the court). I’m not sure why you’d use the old format, and it’s just a curious thing to do it this way. No biggie though.

Secondly Walberg maybe knows the offense too well. Sometimes he can’t see the forrest for trees, and presumes that the viewer knows the offense as well as he does. For experienced Dribble Drive coaches this isn’t a problem, but for novices it might be a problem. In fact, even for coaches who knows the offense pretty well it’s not that easy – I spent ten months making sense of how to fit all parts and sources of info – including these DVD’s – on the Dribble Drive into a cohesive book…

Overall I’d recommend buying both sets, and I give them each a 9/10 rating.

The DVD’s are available here:

Advanced Dribble-Drive Offense: Zone & Transition Game, $119.99

100 Drills and Sets for Implementing the Dribble Drive Offense, $79.99