The Lost Art Of Outlet Passing

The outlet pass is an unheralded weapon for any basketball team. The ability to control the defensive rebound, chin the ball with elbows held high, pivot or power dribble away from the opposing player and snap off an accurate pass to the proper outlet player, not only starts your fast break, but it allows your other players to read the situation and get into their proper lanes. It all starts with the outlet. Yet this essential skill remains and under-emphasized and under-taught skill.

ESPN’S Jay Bilas often regales viewers with a story about the former UCLA sensation and current Minnesota Timberwolves rookie, Kevin Love. Bilas explains how the Bruin coaching staff had Love demonstrate the power of his outlet passing skills to the ESPN crew after a team practice. The 6-foot-10-inch, 271-pound post player stood on the baseline and threw a crisp, two-hand chest pass the length of the court and hit the opposite backboard with a dead-on bullseye.

Bilas said that he and his co-workers stood in stunned silence as the UCLA coaches then explained how Love’s penchant for strong two-hand chest, two-hand overhead and one-hand baseball-outlet passes had given their team fast-break opportunities not seen at the school since Bill Walton roamed the pivot for the Bruins. See a few examples of Love’s college outlet-pass handiwork for yourself…

This story of outlet-pass glory will immediately remind some old-school coaches of NBA Hall of Famer, Wes Unseld. Unseld, an undersized 6-foot-7 center, who played for the NBA’s Washington Bullets (now Wizards), was known as perhaps the game’s greatest outlet passer.

Bob Ryan of the The Boston Globe, once wrote of Unseld “The Hall of Fame should have a perpetually running tape machine showing Wes Unseld zinging one of his unmatched two-hand outlets to a cheating teammate for an easy two points. Surely, no man in basketball history ever began more fast breaks with a 50-foot outlet pass than did Wes Unseld.”

As Kevin Love brings Unseld-like production back to the outlet pass, Pete Gaudet, the long-time assistant coach at Ohio State recently outlined an easy-to-run  outlet-pass drill in his book Practical Post Play (which is available at Sysko’s Sports Books at www.syskos.com).

“Stand a player in front in front of the backboard with a ball and have him or her pass the ball off the glass and secure the carom to simulate rebounding a miss. The rebounder immediately locates a teammate moving between the foul-line extended to half-court.

“The rebounder must pivot outside and fire an outlet pass to the outlet player. At times, the coach can make a defensive move toward the passer to stop the outlet. Here, the post player should respond with a power dribble along the baseline, before making the pass.”