Lakers' Tex Winter Belonged In Basketball Hall Of Fame Long Ago

His absence during the Los Angeles Lakers ring ceremony Tuesday night was conspicuous to the few who recognize his extraordinary hand in Phil Jackson’s peerless success.

Most TNT viewers would not have cared had long-time Lakers PA announcer Lawrence Tanter called his name with the rest of the assistant coaches.

Casual fans rarely appreciate reclusive or terminally ill consultants.

They want Kobe Bryant and a glimpse of the legendary Jackson.

They want to see how the volatile Ron Artest will mesh with an established core.

Even if they will not admit it, they wouldn’t mind him going off the deep end just once, for the sheer entertainment value of his shenanigans.

The sports world loves a train wreck and the mere thought of controversy. It’s far easier to get listeners talking about former ESPN analyst Steve Phillips and his psycho mistress, or a declaration that LeBron James has surpassed Bryant as the league’s greatest player than the triangle offense and its intricacies.

It would not surprise me if hundreds of thousands of viewers saw Jerry West—Mr. Clutch and The Logo—introduced during the ceremony and said, “That’s the guy who said LeBron is better than Kobe.”

If you told the average NBA supporter that Jackson had coached the Chicago Bulls and Lakers to 10 championships without significant assistance, or that the coaches only prevailed because they had Bryant, Shaquille O’ Neal, Michael Jordan, and Scottie Pippen they might believe you.

Assistant coaches go unnoticed and unheralded, making far less money than the players they help make dominant or the lead sideline men who must accept the brunt of the credit for the team’s successes and failures.

Compare the volume of cheers from the Staples Center crowd for Jim Cleamons or Craig Hodges to Jackson or Bryant.

It was not close. It never is.

The purple and gold crowd attendees did not yell for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar because he has tutored starting center Andrew Bynum as a special assistant.

He won five championships as a starting center in L.A. and became the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. Any discussion of the best to ever lace 'em up should include his name.

Hall-of-Fame voters can often appear like casual fans. They seem to know less about the game than the fans or beat writers know about them. Quick can anyone name one voter on the panel that selects finalists each year for Springfield enshrinement?

The Hall is a glorification of grandiose, not a celebration of nuance.

The ring-less Allen Iverson will be a first-ballot selection because he ranks third all-time in points per game, even though another small guy, Isiah Thomas, already blazed the trail for puny point guards.

Iverson has never been a leader or an intelligent player. Yet, he will likely get in before Dennis Rodman, a vital contributor on five championship squads who established himself as a relentless winner on the court.

I purposely waited until the article was half completed to mention its subject, Tex Winter, because his name often appears as an afterthought in congratulatory remarks or discussions of how Jackson won with the Bulls and Lakers.

Credit Bryant for a heartfelt sound bite on what Winter has meant to him.

TNT aired a brief video of the long-time assistant accepting his ring after the third quarter of the Lakers win over the Clippers.

He deserved, for once, to stand alone.

Naismith Hall voters have yet to reward him after six appearances on the final ballot and the player who benefited most from Winter’s adaptation of the triple-post offense has never given him a proper thank you.

During his pompous, angry, and cruel induction speech in September, Michael Jordan had to beat everyone who insulted, questioned or “wronged” him again—even Winter—to re-assert his dominance to anyone who had forgotten it.

Symphony Hall, hosting the largest crowd ever at an induction ceremony, became Jordan’s makeshift, post-retirement basketball court, where he bullied and posterized everyone from Bryon Russell, to a high school teammate and his own kids.

He recalled Winter once tsk-tsking him for ball-hogging the Bulls to a comeback win in Toronto.

“There’s no ‘I’ in team, but there’s an ‘I’ in win,” Jordan remembered saying.

He has never said, “thanks for caring so much about me,” or “thanks for installing an offense that made me and my teammates unstoppable.”

Players win championships, not organizations right?

If he cannot say a nice thing about Jerry Krause, the general manager who constructed the greatest dynasty since Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics, don’t expect Jordan to deliver the eulogy at Winter’s funeral or even apologize.

Krause contends he skipped Jordan’s induction as a protest against Winter’s exclusion from the Hall, not because His Airness made him feel unwelcome.

Come to think of it, as fellow Bleacher Report writer Bob Warja would say, Krause belongs in the Hall too.

Winter never hit a game-winner in the playoffs, never stood or sat behind a podium and accepted an NBA Coach of the Year award, but his impact on the game, as a mastermind of offense and 454 win college coach—has been as profound as anything Iverson, George Gervin, or Doug Collins ever did.

He pioneered the use of an offensive philosophy in the pros so complex that only a handful of teams since the 1940s have dared to learn it.

Hall-of-Fame coach Sam Barry taught the offense to Winter sure, but his pupil had the best application for it; Winter wrote the book, published it, and promoted it.

The triangle requires a full commitment from every player and coach, one reason so few have attempted to teach its principles.

The system creates a sideline triangle between the low-post center, a forward on the wing, a guard in the corner, a guard at the top of the key, and a forward on the weak-side high post.

In filling all five spaces, each player can pass to four other weapons or find cutters and flashers. The offense is designed so that any combination of players on the floor can react and improvise to any defensive scheme.

The genius of the offense can be seen in the list of point men who started for Jackson’s title teams from Ron Harper to Derek Fisher—both smart and tough, but never as talented or as gifted as, say, Deron Williams or John Stockton.

Lakers players and Jackson have affectionately dubbed Winter the “insultant” because he never hesitates to air his grievances with the team’s performances and shortcomings.

If Jordan aborted the offense, Winter let him know about it without pause.

When Bryant does it now, Winter gives the future Hall-of-Famer a constructive, but stern earful.

Through all the criticisms, from his days on the sidelines at Marquette and Kansas State to his often hospital bed-based role with the defending champion Lakers, the targets of his complaints have always listened.

Even Jordan.

Winter suffered a stroke in the spring and his health will worsen with time.

It is possible that when he dies, so too will the triangle?

They say that many of the 7,000 languages spoken around the world will die in the coming years.

This basketball speak is as rare as any of those endangered species.

There is a way to make sure its brilliance will always live in memory.

Hall voters should know and Krause did long ago.

Induct Winter into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Please.