Full court pressure is coming back and the arithmetic is behind it

Pressing looks reckless until you price a live ball turnover against the extra possessions it costs you.

Pressing went out of fashion for a good reason. It gave up layups, it fouled, it tired everyone out, and in an era when a made basket was worth two points and possessions were plentiful, giving away easy ones to chase turnovers was a bad exchange.

The exchange has changed and the fashion has not caught up.

Two things moved. First, the value of a forced live ball turnover went up, because a turnover in the back court now leads to shots that are worth more than they used to be, including the corner three that a scrambling defence cannot cover. Second, the cost of the possessions you concede went up less than you might think, because half court offences have become so efficient that the gap between what a press concedes and what a set defence concedes has narrowed. If your half court defence gives up a point and eleven per possession anyway, the layup you allow by pressing is not a catastrophe. It is a slightly worse version of your baseline.

Then there is the part nobody prices at all, which is time. A press that does not force a turnover still eats six or seven seconds of shot clock. The offence arrives at the front court with fifteen seconds instead of twenty two, which is enough to cut off the second and third options of most sets, and a possession that has to end in the last six seconds is worth substantially less. Pressing that never generates a single steal can still be profitable through that channel alone.

The obvious objection is legs. You cannot press forty eight minutes with an eight man rotation and expect anything left in the fourth quarter. Correct, so do not. Press in bursts, tied to substitutions, after made free throws when your defence is already set. Ten possessions a night, chosen by the coach rather than the situation.

I would go further. I think a team with a deep bench and no obvious half court identity should press as its main defence and accept that it will look chaotic, because chaos is now cheap and order is now expensive.

The presses that died were designed for a two point world. Nobody has redesigned one for this one.