'The triangle doesn't fix everything, you say?' (USATSI)
The triangle doesn't fix everything, you say?' (USATSI)

In a fascinating interview with the New York Times, Knicks President Phil Jackson reasserts his faith in the triangle offense while admitting that so far, the entire thing has been a flaming disaster. 

But it didn’t take long after Jackson sat down for a recent interview over lunch to admit that his debut as an N.B.A. executive has been sobering, stressful and, during early morning reflections, doubt-inducing.“Like nothing I’ve seen before,” he said of the Knicks’ first 41 games, of which they lost 36, a half-season of hell. “So far, my experiment has fallen flat on its face.”

via Phil Jackson, With Knicks, Is Out to Prove Triangle Offense Still Fits - NYTimes.com.

The Knicks have been better as of late, winning five of seven before their loss Tuesday. But overall, the offense (26th in points per possession this season) has been horrific. Players who were supposed to fit have not fit, and the system has not been a balm for the personnel. 

Which of course has led those acolytes still trumpeting its superiority to say "it's the players, stupid." The thought is that to run the system, you need not just good players, but smart players. In fact, Jackson's former GM, Jerry Krause, who Jackson didn't exactly have a swell relationship with a lot of the time, defended the system by saying the Knicks essentially lacked basketball IQ. 

That's pretty insulting considering Jose Calderon, Jason Smith, Carmelo Anthony, and Tim Hardaway Jr. are pretty smart guys basketball wise. But then, throwing others under the bus at the altar of Jackson is nothing new for the Church of the Triangle. Jackson has never shied away from ascribing blame or publicly criticizing fellow coaches or players, and in the interview, he claims the problem with the previous incarnations of the triangle which have crashed into the ground in a flaming mess have been compromised by the sytem being run wrong. 

Let's go check under the bus and see who Phil's latest victims are, shall we? 

But as to skepticism about whether he can make the triangle work in a league in which no one else plays it, Jackson said: “I’m not daunted by the number of people who have commented that this way of playing is arcane, that the game has moved on. The game has moved on.”

He also believes that the game, stylistically, moves in mysterious ways.

“I think it’s still debatable about how basketball is going to be played, what’s going to win out,” he said, leaving no doubt of his disdain for the point-guard-dominated concept of “screen-and-roll, break down, pass, and two or three players standing in spots, not participating in the offense.”

Jackson said that positional principles of the triangle were evident in most coaches’ schemes — including that of Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, “in a very fluid form” — but that total immersion had not been embraced beyond short-lived and unsuccessful head-coaching stints by former Jackson lieutenants like Bill Cartwright, Kurt Rambis and Jim Cleamons. Rambis and Cleamons are currently assisting the Knicks’ rookie head coach, Derek Fisher.

via Phil Jackson, With Knicks, Is Out to Prove Triangle Offense Still Fits - NYTimes.com.

Oh, OK. It's not that the system is wrong. It's that the players were bad, or that the coach didn't run it right, or both. Got it. Because we've never seen coaches take less talented teams and make them into efficient, effective offenses. (Toronto, Atlanta to an extent, etc. but whatever.) Thanks for the insight, Big Chief Triangle. 

I've never been an advocate of the Triangle. I think players make the system and the system make the players. It's not one or the other, it's a symbiotic relationship. Jackson goes on to reassert his belief in what the triangle can do, calling this the first "chapter." And he's right. There's no reason to believe the triangle can't be effective.

You don't have to play Moreyball (threes and layups and free throws and nothing else) to be effective. There's more than one way to skin a cat, particularly in relation to your personnel. The Blazers run sets to get LaMarcus Aldridge mid-range jumpers, because he's awesome at making them (though not as good this season, just 41 percent from mid-range) and it opens the rest of their offense. The triangle can be effective (though it is going to want to maximize the weak-side corner three usually executed by the point guard -- ball reversal's a pretty big deal in the modern NBA with how help defenses have evolved). 

However, and this is key: the conversation about the triangle being some sort of mystical concept that is superior is dead. The triangle is not better than other systems. It is not inherently superior, unless we're talking about something like Mike Woodson's "If they ISO, they ISO" sewage pit he ran in New York in his last few years. The things which advocates trumpet about the triangle (ball movement, decision-making, spacing) are elements in every good offense. Moving the ball creates better shots. This is not mysticism, this is common sense where it relates to basketball. 

A great offense can take marginal players and make them middle of the pack. The triangle took a pretty talented, if difficult to play together roster and made it a wreck. J.R. Smith was a bad fit because J.R. Smith is a bad fit for every offense in the long run. Tyson Chandler was a bad fit, but trying to sell me on the idea Tyson Chandler isn't smart enough offensively to run it is kind of insane. The triangle doesn't have to necessarily make this team better to be a good system. It still can be. 

However, it's not some fix-all for an offense's problems. It is not superior. It's just another offense, which if run well with the right personnel can be successful. If run with the two greatest shooting guards of all time or a top-five center all-time can be a championship offense. The triangle's not dead, and Jackson's chances of being successful in the years to come with a more patient front office approach and a clear vision remain high, but he's going to have to scrap and claw like all the other executives. His mere presence and the simple idea of the triangle isn't going to save anyone. 

So pour one out for the myth of the triangle, but don't count out Jackson, yet. Because he's right. The game moves in mysterious ways.