Luke Walton says he will not run the triangle offense with Lakers
Los Angeles will look more like Golden State than a triangle team, new Lakers coach Luke Walton said.
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The Los Angeles Lakers named Luke Walton their new coach on Friday, and there were immediately questions about what kind of head coach he would be. At least one of those has been answered already: Walton will not bring the triangle offense back to Los Angeles. Instead, he will try to play a similar style to the Golden State Warriors.
"I don't think the triangle's the most appropriate offense for the players that they have in place right there," Walton said, via ESPN's Ethan Sherwood Strauss. "So I think I'm going to bring more of the style and spacing that we use up here, which has elements of the triangle, that philosophy."
This is an easy one. If you have a young point guard as talented as D'Angelo Russell, there is no need to force the triangle offense on him. The most important task ahead of Lakers' coaching staff should be developing Russell into one of the best pick-and-roll players in the NBA. He has all the tools to become that, though he is 20 years old and needs to become more polished. Unless Phil Jackson returns to the Lakers, there's no reason that this should even be a topic of conversation.
This is not to say that Russell and Los Angeles' other young players couldn't benefit from some of the lessons of the triangle. The system values players who can play on and off the ball and create both for themselves and others. That's what Walton will want his Lakers to do, though not in that format.
Stealing from Golden State makes a ton of sense for this particular group of players. To be clear: Russell is not Stephen Curry, Jordan Clarkson is not Klay Thompson and Julius Randle is not Draymond Green. All three could learn from studying those players, though, and Walton's new job is all about helping them become the best possible versions of themselves.
