See, your logic falls flat on it's face when presented examples outside of this setting. Sports Patterns usually require people playing in the same area. All you are doing at Nationals is taking that requirement and using it control the breakdown on the lanes, in order to allow the team to score it's best.

Not for nothing, but if you watch BowlTV's coverage of Nicholas J.'s Pro Shop #2 and their performance at the USBC open, you will see exactly what teamwork does, and how they all worked together. IIRC, they all shot great scores for team (both their 1st and 2nd team).

Most people don't play a Sports pattern 5 or 10 boards different from others. And in your scenario, yes, if the team agreed to play 10 and someone goes into 15, then yes they are not a team player, I think that is quite obvious. And if I was on that team, I would express my displeasure with that bowler. Now if he discussed with his teammates and the group decided it would be ok for him to deveate from the game plan, then I have no issues with it. But to just do it so that person can score better at the possible detriment to the rest of the team, that is selfish.

This was apparent in Stef Nation's team play, when they were rather all over the place. Nation had the best look of everyone on the pair, but since everyone else was all over the place, their scores suffered, and that was sad. It wasn't because they were being selfish, mind you; but just the simple fact that there wasn't any type of consistency there so they could all shoot well. Their tracks converged and conflicted with each other, making their lines squirly/erratic, and made for a tough night all around.

But you can easily see with these performances how running your own race may be your own comfort zone, but can be a detriment to your team, as well as your performance overall as well, both on the scoreboard and mentally.

BL.

TDC,
   A few things:
1) The majority of teams DON'T use different balls in practice over what they throw during competition. A lot of people feel using highly sanded balls creates too much of an over/under on the lanes and doesn't do any good.
2) Having everyone work together makes the lanes easier, but it does not make them easy. On a THS you have 5 boards sometimes on either side of your mark at the arrows, plus you have miss room at your break point as well. You do not need accuracy or consistentcy of speed at all to score well. That is not the case at Nationals. You still need to be relatively close to your mark at the arrows (once you have broken down the lanes and must be right on it before that) and you MUST hit your breakpoint down the lane. You still are required to throw good shots in order to score well. If you work together all you are doing is a) Breaking the lanes down in a known way in order to allow everyone the ability to understand the shot in games 2 and 3 and b) creating a small amount of room to the right in case a ball is right of target. To say that using teamwork to break down the lanes is like bowling on THS is farcical at best.
3) If you feel this is such a bad thing, what do you suggest? Should team purposely throw different lines as to make the lanes tougher to play then when they started? Do you tell a group of bowlers who all throw the same type of ball (tweeners, crankers, etc, not brand/make of ball) that they can't play the lanes together, even though the pattern says they should, because that would make the lanes too easy and isn't fair? I am waiting you see you responses to these and the questions I asked you before. You feel it is so wrong for teams to work together (you know actually use teamwork) yet have no problem with people making the lanes harder then they need to be and thus effectively turning these teams into donators.

Pinbuster,
    I freely admit that part of this is to help create area where there is none. But that is only part of it. The other part is to break the lanes down in a controlled fashion, and that is the part people seem to overlook. If you have 5 or 10 guys just playing everywhere, the lanes breakdown randomly based on where they are throwing. People playing right of others get oil pushed into their line, and when they try to move in, they have areas that were broken down by the other bowlers and it makes it much harder to get a good read on moves and adjustments. If everyone plays together, then when you move in you know where the oil is and where the dry is, and you can make calculated adjustments/ball choices based on that. Instead of having to guess cause there were people playing differently all over the right side of the lane.
 
And again, I think you are taking too much away from the actual execution of the shot. You will gain a small amout of room at the arrows with a strategy like this. Not a lot. And you still have to be consistent in hitting your breakpoint and with your speed. Scoring well at the USBC OC is still about who makes the best shots, even when they use this strategy. I can't fathom why everyone thinks this just opens it up for anyone to score well and that execution doesn't mean anything. That is totally incorrect. If anything it adds an element to the execution. Not only do you have to execute well physically on the lanes, you have execute well mentally before you bowl to make sure you have a solid plan in place based on the shot given (playing the right line in practice, not using too heavily sanded equipment, etc).
 
ON EDIT: Also, the teams that have resources to bowl on the shot for months in advance, and have the ball contracts, have had those same advantages for decades. Why is it an issue now? The booths are very glad to tell everyone what new balls are working well, since they want you to buy one from them. That is not an advantage to anyone, well maybe the people who have the money to get the ball, but a good majority of them aren't on the top of the leaderboard. Most of those people have had the balls they used with them for some time, so they know how it fits with the rest of their equipment, know how to adjust with, and know what ball to use next.

I would like to chime in on my Nationals Experience. Let me describe myself a little. I have about 500rpm and throw about 17-18 mph. So fairly enoug hand, and was using the Roto Grip Disturbed OOB surface through Team and D/S all 9 games. Bowled Team last Wednesday night 7pm squad and D/S 1030pm squad! My experience with Team Was Disappointing USBC or Our Captain that put together our 18 teams  messed up our crossing team! We practiced with a team we were supposed to cross with a few times  before we left and had a good game plan! Well that WASNT the team we got paired with. Dont know if USBC or our Person setting the teams up messed up. Well either way we tried to explain our plan to the other team. They were open to it at first in the squad room! Well that wasnt the case. Our plan was to break it down 6-7-8 and not jump left until we seen fit around end game 1 into game 2 and chase it little by little left. We were on 29-30 to the right of the middle walkway!

Well the other team seen it fit to jump inside 17-18 at arrows and 10 downlane. Well that didnt go good for me or our team who was trying to stay right. For me i shot 510 Team and was partly my fault for not trying to salvage the 3 games and jump in and score as much as possible. neither team broke 2600.....

D/S we were paired up with 4 of 5 of our teammates , the other 2 we knew from our group. They Listened to us and followed our lead. Also don't know if anyone has had this happen but we did our D/S on the same team pair 29-30 AGAIN! Our doubles and singles was fairly better. Our plan was to throw plastic up 15 and create the SHIM you all are talking about. In practice i threw my disturbed 3 times and threw plastic about 10 more times. We had about 10-12 balls of plastic on each lane before we started play. I threw my disturbed one more time on the right lane just to get a feel for it before Play started. started playing 12 at arrows out to about 7-8 209-231 moved about 2-1 during those 2 games. 3rd 226- moved 2-1 . start of singles moved another 2-1 and stayed there for the first 2 games of singles and went 266-235. 501 Slim chance at the Singles lead was in my grasp. Moved maybe 1 more and went front 6 and left 4 pin finished 226. Lost the moment feeling pressure of lead especially with the singles leader just happen to be there watching. Plastic was the way to go for creating that hold down lane and allowed me and our team mates to not jump too far left like we saw everyone else in our group doing . Overall very happy with D/S and an awesome experience going through the 3rd game with singles lead 5 strikes away!

It is true that prior to resin, it was not possible to easily manipulate the oil patterns.  However the other side of that coin is that the lack of friction in the balls forced everyone closer to the same area of the lane, thus opening up a track over a period of games.  Also much lighter oil volumes and viscosities were tracked in more quickly.  All the best teams bowled the late squads years ago because the shot would be opened up for them by the early squads.

Also, I think something nobody has really touched in is the incrementally small advantage lane manipulation has to most teams.  Teams that come in and shoot 3300 are good teams that are going to score well regardless.  A team that comes in and shoots 2700 without trying to manipulate the lanes is not going to crack 2900 no matter how intelligently they attack the pattern. 

Anyone that's bowled after a good group in minors under the old system of minors knows the difference carving the lanes out makes for even average bowlers.

The only reason carving in a shot is even a discussion is because the modern balls allow guys to essentially play anywhere they want and carve a shot in ( or blow it up ).  The old balls wouldn't allow guys with high revs to get in the middle of the oil and blow a hole in it.  Everyone scored better if they played closer to 10 board out of the gate, which caused the shot to open up after a game.  Today you can have a guy blasting a 230 over 4th arrow, and another guy shooting a ton up second arrow the first game.  By the second game carry down and blown heads have ruined it for both.  You just didn't get this situation prior to resin balls. 

Keep in mind I have no dog in the hunt, I've never been to this event but its interesting to read what is going on and peoples views on it.

Being someone from the outside looking in, I must admit that it seems ridiculous that with a 5 man team event, that people are essentially allowed to bring in an extra teams to help them score better.

It also seems bad to me that they allow people to bowl for 10 minutes before scoring to " warm up" when apparently everyone and their mother knows its not really a warm up, but a lane prepping event.

Like I said, as someone from the outside I see a few things that would make things far more legitimate in my eyes.

1. They need to cut down on the practice time. Yes I understand the older guys need more time to get limbered up, but 10 minutes is a bit excessive.

2. They need to limit what balls can be used for said practice. Yes I understand that all balls will change the condition somewhat, but with less time in warm up and less ability to soak in practice its less of an issue.

3. If its a 5 man team, then you should be randomly paired at entry, not be able to choose who you are going to be bowling with. Its not a 5man team game then, its a 10 man team game then with the people that only have 5 at a disadvantage out the gate.

I get both sides of the argument I understand that you should do whats best for the team. What I feel though is that the team strategy should be something that is in play while the matches are on going. Its one thing to have a strategy for actual scoring, and something completely different when 50% of that is done months prior to setting foot on the lanes.