Is it right to applaud death when it finally arrives and spells the end of a long and prosperous life?
If so, then the Knicks are guilty of shoveling dirt on a system that produced 11 NBA championships but not many fans since: the Triangle offense.
There wasn’t a single tear shed in their locker room when the 2016-17 season began and the Knicks scaled back their reliance on the Triangle. It was a fresh and about-face approach to playing basketball. If you took the Knicks players to a bar and fed them shots of truth serum, there wouldn’t be many tributes to the Triangle. Carmelo Anthony was fond of it like an airball. Derrick Rose, the new point guard, had questions. Others found it confusing and restricting. And it’s questionable whether Jeff Hornacek would’ve accepted the coaching job last summer had he been required by Phil Jackson to keep the Triangle intact for 48 minutes, which he wasn’t.
A number of coaches and general managers have said in the past: The Triangle works magic if you have Jordan and Shaq and Kobe, and it doesn’t if you don’t.
That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of a system developed by Tex Winter and popularized by Jackson, who owe their places in the Hall of Fame partly to their use of the Triangle. Of course, Derek Fisher was forced to use it when becoming the first coach hired by Jackson in New York, and let’s just say Fisher will not follow them in the Hall. He did not have Jordan or Shaq or Kobe.
With Jackson relaxing his once-stubborn stance on the Knicks using the offense, and Hornacek employing a reduced version and only in certain situations, the Triangle as we knew it is gone. Maybe for good, too, considering the lack of disciples of the Triangle among younger or current coaches. It may be a long time before it’s brought back to life, if ever.
When Jackson took the job of running the club, the Triangle was one of his selling points to Knicks owner Jim Dolan. Well, the Knicks were 49-117 with the Triangle, which sort of confirms what those coaches and GMs thought about the Triangle was true. During this time with the Triangle in New York, the only star on the club was Anthony, and based on his body language he found it restricting and clumsy. Initially, Anthony agreed to give it a try after coaxing by Jackson because ‘Melo hadn’t won anything. But his skepticism was readily apparent once the disappointing results came rolling in.
Recently, Anthony said this after learning the Triangle would, at best, be watered down:
“I love it. I love playing with the ball in my hands throughout the course of the game. It’s something I’ve always kind of done and felt comfortable with. It’s just like the last couple of years with the offense we’ve been running, we didn’t run much pick and rolls. It wasn’t that type of offense. I think now with the pace we’re trying to play, the way we’re trying to play, implement more of that style of play. That’s going to call for me to have the ball in my hands a little bit. Playing pick and roll, try to figure out the defense, use mismatches. I’m all for it.”
The Triangle relies on player movement, discourages set plays, and each player is rather interchangeable on the floor. It’s designed to inflate the value of marginal players without stifling the skills of the stars. And yet it now seems as prehistoric as the Wing-T in football.
How much was the Triangle responsible for those 11 championships? Depends on whom you ask. Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant approved it because none won titles until Jackson came along. Also, the Bulls prospered in the Triangle briefly when Jordan had his mid-life crisis and played baseball for two years, and their only star was Scottie Pippen.
But those three superstars were in their prime. Curiously, no other coach has embraced the Triangle as firmly as Jackson, nor used it to achieve similar success. Even Steve Kerr, who played on some of those great Bulls teams, refused to make it the foundation of the Warriors when he became coach. If anything, Kerr’s system relies more on the style popularized by Mike D’Antoni on those quick-scoring teams in Phoenix.
In a copycat league, that’s rather amazing, how coaches developed an allergic reaction to something that worked in the past. Quite simply, nobody outside of Jackson’s teams in Chicago and L.A. bothered to use the Triangle exclusively. When former Jackson assistant Kurt Rambis used a variation of it in Minnesota in a dreadful stint where he lasted a year on the job, that was a knife to the gut of the Triangle. The theories abound: It’s too complicated, there’s not enough time in the preseason for experimenting, etc. There’s another, rather popular reason: Our stars aren’t too keen on it. Also, don’t dismiss the idea that coaches want their own system to receive credit for winning titles and would loathe to use another’s, especially one belonging to Jackson. He wasn’t the most endearing member of the fraternity, mainly out of professional jealousy.
The understandable theory is that great players, when properly motivated and challenged and given a solid supporting cast, can win in almost any system that suits their skills. The Spurs have done pretty well without the Triangle and ditto for LeBron James. A system should fit the players and talent on hand, not vice versa.
Also, the league has evolved, making the Triangle hard to embrace if not obsolete. A good portion of the Triangle relies on post play, which has all but disappeared in the NBA. For better or worse, the game today leans heavily toward three-point shooting and spacing for even more three-point shooting, with a sprinkling of isolation basketball for teams lavished with players who can take their man off the dribble.
It’s hard to imagine an unemployed coach selling himself in interviews by talking up the Triangle, unless Jackson is conducting the interview. That’s because, outside of Jackson, no coach has used it or been able to articulate it enough to land a job.
And so the most lethal offense in recent NBA history is about to be laid to rest in 2016-17, now that the Knicks are modifying it, and using it only in certain sets, perhaps as a courtesy to Jackson. Judging by the lack of mourners, the lonely Triangle’s devoted following among coaches can be counted on one hand.
Although, Phil Jackson will gladly remind you that the number of championships won by the Triangle require more than two hands.
Veteran NBA writer Shaun Powell has worked for newspapers and other publications for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here or follow him onTwitter.
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