Could the Triangle Offense Work in Today’s Game?
Is this system too archaic?
The Triangle Offense dominated the 90s and much of the 2000s.
Phil Jackson had his teams -the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers- execute Tex Winter’s masterful system perfectly, resulting in a record 11 NBA championships.
But when Jackson tried to bring the Triangle Offense to New York in 2014, it didn’t work out too well.
He was the Knicks’ executive at that time and he brought on Derek Fisher, who played for him in L.A., to coach the team and to teach them the system.
Fisher and the Knicks won a measly 17 games in 2014-15. To be fair, however, the team’s two stars, Carmelo Anthony and A’mare Stoudemire, didn’t play many games.
Anthony played 40 games before sitting out the remainder of the season to rehab from knee surgery. As for Stoudemire, he played 36 games before getting traded to the Dallas Mavericks.
The following season (2015-16), Fisher coached 54 games, getting a record of 23-32 before being let go.
The failures of those two seasons created the narrative that the Triangle Offense couldn’t work in modern basketball. It didn’t evolve with the game.
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Now, back to the article…
However, according to 2-time NBA champion Sasha Vujacic, the Triangle Offense is now considered archaic and is unused because there aren’t any players and coaches who can properly teach it.
“If you don’t have the right coaches, the right mindsets, people that won before, it you don’t have people that actually understand basketball or were there before them, just playing politics and you know, going from one team to another and just exchanging, you know, this big circle, you’re not going to teach [new and young players] anything,” Vuvjacic told Tony Allen and Zach Randolph on the Out the Mud podcast.
He explained the reason the Lakers were successful was because the team had veterans and elder statesmen who understood the Triangle Offense and were able to teach the system.
“The reason we were so successful is because we were different than anybody else,” he said. “There’s no system that is even close to the one we had. But what you need is someone to teach that system properly and you need a player, like Kobe [Bryant], somebody that’s a franchise player… So if you have that as players, like Z-Bo… if you would have been with someone like that, that could actually explain it to you, give it to you even in the middle of your career, you would adjust because you would understand what it means to be on the basketball court and playing the right way.”
Can Triangle Offense Work Today?
Okay, so Vujacic didn’t quite answer the question of the effectiveness of the Triangle Offense in today's game.
He didn’t give a “yes” or “no” answer.
But he did give “if” conditions:
If a team has good coaches who can teach the system well…
If a team has a franchise player who has mastered the system…
Then yes, the system will be successful.
However, this logic can be applied to any offensive and defensive system, which to be fair, Vujacic does admit.
But the question needs to be answered, so I’ll go with yes.
The Triangle Offense has won a lot of titles and I think it can suit a handful of players, such as Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Giannis Antetokuonmpo, Nikola Jokic, and Shai Gilchrest-Alexander because it’ll allow them to get to their spots. It’ll also give them options for what they can do (score or kick it out).
But I really don’t know. I just gave an answer because I felt one needed to be given.
But what do you think? Could teams using the Triangle Offense do well in today’s game?
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