What I think is important from Billy's interview:
I wish you had asked me a few years ago. .... At the time, I could tell you in great detail, the differences between motion and triangle. The general sentiment is these offenses are about the same - and they are - but not if you are trying to play at the highest level.....
In short, the biggest difference between motion and triangle is the way the distro works...... In triangle, you can be highly successful even if you have two guys on each lineup who are god awful on offense. In motion, that is much less the case......
Motion really clicks when you have a nice smooth distro, and a good bunch of offensive players. The "superstar" model does not work nearly as well in motion as ANY offense, including flex and fast break......
Suppose you have a team, it has a fantastic scorer guard, let's say this is D2. And your star guard is a 90SPD/PER type of guy. You also have a guard playing SF who can score well, more like an 80 SPD/70 PER kind of guy, and then a PG who is a good PG but not much of a scorer, maybe a 70 ATH/85 SPD/45 PER kind of guy. You have two bigs, a high scoring center (75 ATH, 90 LP) and a DEF/REB big (80 ATH, 50 LP). In triangle, you might set this distro up (SG, SF, C, PG, PF) as 15, 10, 10, 4, 3. And with your backups, you might have something more like 15, 10, 10, 8, 6, 4, 3, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0.
In motion, you might set this distro up (SG, SF, C, PG, PF) as 13, 10, 10, 7, 5. And with backups, you might be like 13, 10, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 3, 3, 2, 1, 0.
This is frequently how my balanced offensive teams would look in that day and age. In triangle, my top couple scorers were usually a little higher than the pack, than they would be. And I had a lot more 0, 1, 2 type players. A two on my triangle team might be a four or five on my motion team. Motion you really don't need great offense to be a highly efficient five to seven PPG scorer. In triangle, you can easily have multiple 0-2 PPG scorers and it doesn't matter. In motion, this is much less the case.
Another semi example is when you have a mediocre team with one star. You still need that star to score a lot, in any offense, because he's so much better than anyone else on the team. Well in triangle, flex, FB, he might be like a 23-27 PPG scorer, and in motion, a 20-23 PPG scorer. So, these are not HUGE differences, but over the course of a whole team of 12 players, it's a significant difference. Often my top scorers in motion would be like 12, 11, 10, 10, 9, 8, 6 PPG, with a bunch of 4-5 PPG guys, and in triangle, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8, 5, 5, with mostly two PPG guys left.
And it's not just how you set up a team, it's how you recruit. In motion, part of the reason I had more 4-5 PPG guys is because I recruited for them. Having just enough offense to score four PPG as an underclassmen and 6-8 PPG as a senior is a lot more valuable in motion than triangle, so I had more players like that. On the other hand, I'd have more god awful scorers in triangle, because they don't hurt you at all.....
I'll make a few comments now on the different offenses:
Triangle - Highly successful with a couple strong scorers on the floor at all times. If you have three strong scorers in your starting lineup, a fourth adds almost no value, and a fifth is damn near useless. Two "studs" and a strong scorer are really at that point where you experience very strong diminishing returns, maybe like 25 practice minutes in practice planning. Triangle, like all offenses in this day and age, benefits from a strong guard offense. Perimeter is highly important to guards. PER/SPD are key, ATH/BH are less important FROM AN OFFENSIVE STANDPOINT than in other offenses. Always use caution - I've had many people take me the wrong way - I'll be talking about offense, and say ATH isn't as important. But if ATH is incredibly important for your defense, I am making no comment about that - you still might need to really focus on ATH. Passing is also important, relative to other offenses. In general, big men can be successful from the four or five. For bigs in general, I don't think PER and SPD and BH are that important, but this is particularly the case in a triangle offense, particularly for the center. My best triangle centers are straight ATH, REB, LP, DEF, SB guys, I virtually ignore everything else. ATH is highly important for successful scoring bigs. Triangle slowdown seems to be maybe slightly more effective than other offenses, but it's really hard to say for sure.
Motion - Highly successful with a balanced offense. Guards thrive off of SPD/BH, you can get away with less PER in your top scoring guards (as well as your medium scoring guards), than you can in triangle/flex, and its significant. In D1, an 80 PER guard can be super successful. Bigs seem a little more balanced in motion, where your center is not as extreme as in triangle with regard to the value of SPD/BH/PER. ATH is again highly important for successful scoring bigs, on the higher end. And you seem to be able to get at least a good 5-6 PPG out of any big with strong ATH and mediocre LP (40-60 maybe even a bit lower). Playing plus settings on your three point shooting for guards seems least successful in motion, but of course, there are situations where it still makes sense (particularly with the plus-one). Passing is important in any offense, but less critical in motion than any offense.
Flex - I am not as versed in flex. However, the plus setting on guards is clearly most beneficial in the flex. One or two guards can dominate in flex beyond what is possible in any other offense. If you have a 30 PPG guard and a 20 PPG guard, jacking up threes, you better hope you are running flex offense! You can get great efficiency with those numbers, particularly outside of D1. Flex, I don't really understand the bigs or what makes them tick. They just don't seem to tick very well, I think big offense is more useful in triangle and motion than it is in flex. Also, flex seems to really value guard PER, relying less on ATH/BH than motion, and maybe even valuing PER/SPD more than triangle.
Fastbreak - I have limited experience with FB too, but did a fairly in-depth study with a D1 mid major not long ago. It was in the new engine, and I built a team up to an Elite 8, where they lost by one or three to a team who had nine of the 10 best players. Fast break, in my opinion, is a tough offense for new coaches, but potentially great for experienced coaches. One thing is clear - you can have offensive studs without great LP/PER, it's nothing like triangle/motion/flex in that regard. I had an almost 25 PPG scorer guard with 70 ATH, 100 SPD, 48 PER, 99 BH, and A+ FT shooting. He was more efficient than the vast majority of 99 ATH/SPD/PER guards I've had on championship-caliber teams. I think free throw shooting is more important in fast break than any offense. I think ATH/SPD are more important in fast break, in general, than any offense, and LP/PER less important than any offense by far. BH and passing seem pretty important, but I can't place exactly where they fall, however I do think BH is very important for guards. You also will get significantly more fatigued running FB, so stamina is key. Also, fast break is great distro-wise - in motion, it seems you are climbing uphill if you don't have a nice slanted distro. FB you can do whatever you want and it doesn't care. You can have two guys at 20 and nobody else in double digits, and it seems ok. Bigs can possibly be more successful as medium scorers in FB than any other offense, but I'm not too confident on that one. If you are going to fight an uphill battle against a superior team with superior talent, I honestly think fast break offers the greatest possibility. I strongly considered taking my South Carolina team (took over at a B-, low-end PIT-type club) to fast break, but didn't want to lose the couple seasons switching from triangle, which I am very comfortable with.
......
Keep in mind that all of this stuff on offenses comes from my own experience. I did not take a single generalization from anywhere else. My own experience could be different than yours, I am pretty confident the above was true in my case, but I am heavily guard-oriented guy, place defense above all else (not the rating, defense wins championships!), and a number of other things that could make our situations different. Context is everything. That is why I spend so much time talking about the system you play, building your vision, and experimenting to find what works best in your case. There are few absolutes, and you have to build up from your own experience. You can take the above as guidelines but even if I'm totally right for me (which is unlikely), in your system, maybe 25 percent of these things are no longer even true. So it's always critical you do your own experimenting and figure out what works best for you, in your system, following your vision.