One Basketbal Fan's Painful Admission About the Triangle Offense

As a kid I hated onions.  Now, to the dismay of those unfortunate enough to be within sniffing distance of me after lunch, I love them.

Never cared for school when I was forced to attend.  Now, I love learning new things and don't enjoy not understanding something.

Reading and writing were as necessary as two extra teeth embedded in my elbow growing up.  Today, I can't go a day without indulging in one or the other.  Most days, I do both.

When the Bulls were winning all those championships I watched their games, like most everyone else did, to watch Michael Jordan.  I didn't watch because their offense was all that exciting.  Honestly, it was boring.

There was no point guard to speak of.  I was born into basketball watching Magic Johnson look right and pass left.  When you are raised on the greatest PG to ever play the game anything without something at least in the vicinity of that role is, well, boring.

The triangle offense is boring!

Even describing it is boring.  Try to read this excerpt detailing the offense all the way through.  Try it, I dare you.  I double-dog dare you!

The offense starts when a guard passes to the wing and cuts to the strong-side corner. The triangle is created from a post player on the strong-side block, the strong-side corner, and the extended strong-side wing, who gains possession on the first pass. The desired initial option in the offense is to pass to the strong-side post player on the block who is in good scoring position. From there the player has the options of looking to score or pass to one of the perimeter players who are exchanging from strong-side corner and wing, a dive cut down the lane, or the opposite wing flashing to the top of the key which initiates another common option known as the "pinch post."

That represents the first 1 percent of the wonder that is the triangle.  Yawn.

When the Lakers hired Phil Jackson and word came that he would run the triangle in Los Angeles I gasped.  Showtime was about to become Slowtime.

Did Phil Jackson not understand that Lakers coaches are fired for not being entertaining enough?

Paul Westhead led the team to the 1980 NBA Championship.  His team made the playoffs the year after and started his third year 7-4.  He was fired, in part, because the team was boring.  Winning, sure, but not winning "right."

This is L.A. baby.  Land of flash and style over substance.  You can't just win here you have look good while you do it.

Phil Jackson seemed like the right fit as coach, but the triangle was the wrong fit for L.A. 

Magic Johnson would have averaged 5.3 assists playing under the constraints of that offense. 

L.A. wanted a straight line not a triangle. 

It didn't take long before the teams young superstar was complaining.  Kobe Bryant complained early on about the offense not being flexible enough and limiting his creativity.

I shouted "told you so" to no one in particular between bites of a sandwich laced with red onions.

Instead of falling apart like I thought the team might, they came together.  There was too much talent in the 2000 Lakers not to win, but would they win in a way that captured the imagination of the stars at center court.

Would Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, Jack Nicholson and all the others look up to cheer?

Yes, they did and continue today.

What is it about this plodding boring offense that works?  It's not the offense itself.  It can't be.  If there was something magical about it why doesn't every other team in the NBA run it?

Jim Cleamons, assistant coach with the Lakers and the Bulls under Phil Jackson, got his shot at a head coaching job with Dallas.  Dallas was young then but had a pretty good nucleus built around a point guard named Jason Kidd.  I happened to be in Dallas around that time and remember the billboards proclaiming the "Young Guns" as the next big thing.

Cleamons and the triangle went 28-70.  He lasted just a little over one season.

Sure as a fan of the sport I hate watching the team run the offense, but worse than that is hearing how hard it is to learn.  How many times do we have to hear about the learning curve and the time it takes to learn?

I get that Tex Winter wrote a whole book on the subject and I have no doubt it's very intricate and detailed, but honestly I can make a chicken sandwich complicated if I wanted to.  It's just basketball.  The triangle can't be all that complicated, it sure isn't fun to watch and its definitely not flashy.

Under Phil Jackson however, it always seems to bring wins.  Always.

I have not only grown to accept that fact, but I now embrace it. 

I will always miss the days of watching Magic's neck fully extended as he dribbled down the court.  His brain already calculating the speed of Worthy to his left and Cooper to his right.  Knowing if the defense shut him down he could just lob the ball into Kareem.

However, its time to accept that the triangle is here.  It's not pretty, but in the hands of the best player in the game and the best coach the League has ever seen, it works.

Move over onions, learning, reading, and writing.  Time to make room for the triangle offense.  Another thing I have learned to accept and enjoy later in life.