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Offense Explainer
Jaw-dropping reason why NBA champ says 'triangle' is dead
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Byron Scott says perception is today’s NBA players “aren’t smart enough” to run famed "Triangle"
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Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson won 11 NBA championships running the triangle but three-time champion Byron Scott said the famed offense is now extinct because today's players "aren’t smart enough" to run it.
Scott, 64, won three championships with the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers alongside Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
"I think one of the reasons people say it wouldn’t work today is because players aren’t smart enough — or they say you need two great players like Shaq and Kobe, or Michael and Scottie," Scott said on his Fast Break podcast while in conversation with three-time champion Brian Shaw.
Shaw, 59, won three championships with Phil Jackson's Los Angeles Lakers in 2000, 2001 and 2002.
"When you’re running the triangle, or even the Princeton offense back in the day, if you’ve got players with a high basketball IQ — you don’t have to call anything," Scott added.
"The defense dictates what you’re going to run. If your players are smart, they figure that out instantly. If a team pressures us, we’d just move further out and open up the court more — now you’ve got space for back cuts and everything else. It made it so much harder to guard, because you could call one action, they’d take away the pass, and you’d swing it back up top into a two-man game with a double pin-down on the weak side.
"It’s all reads."
The triangle is one of the most influential and studied offensive frameworks in basketball history. It shaped the dynasties of Jackson’s 1990s Chicago Bulls (with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen) and 2000s Los Angeles Lakers (with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal) but its roots and philosophy extend far beyond those eras.
It was designed by nine-time NBA champion Tex Winter in the late 1940s and early '50s. Winter was hired by the Bulls in 1985 and he taught it to Jackson and the Bulls. It matured under Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen (six NBA titles, 1991–1998) and then powered the Los Angeles Lakers’ three-peat.
"I think it’s more difficult as a coach, because there’s only been a small set of coaches that have actually coached it, right? Shaw said.
"The problem was that Phil had all the coaches who ran the triangle on his staff. So when those other coaches broke off, they hired coaches with no experience.
"You can’t teach your coaches and the players the triangle that way.
"As a player, I don’t think it’s that difficult. Every offense has actions that involve the triangle.
"I mean, when you (Scott) [was] in New Orleans, I remember 'same side' — I was like, 'Oh man, Princeton'."

Shaw and Scott's insights reflect how the modern NBA has turned into a superstar-led high pick and roll centric offense and American players, specifically, have developed that part of their game through high school and college.
"I love it because it puts people in places to play to their strengths," Shaw added.
"You can tweak it, make it your own. They say it wouldn’t survive in today’s game — because of the three-point line and how prolific it is now — but the beauty of it, to me, is that it’s a zone offense that overloads.
"You can run it against man or zone. Even side out-of-bounds plays — you don’t have to change anything. If teams press you, you just move the triangle up to meet the pressure."
The Lakers, with Shaq in the pivot, put together one of the greatest runs in NBA playoff history, losing only once — Game One of the NBA Finals against Allen Iverson's Philadelphia 76ers — en route to going back-to-back.
"In the 2001 Finals, when we went 15-1, we got in such a groove we didn’t ever have to call anything," Shaw revealed.
"It’s based on actions, and it’s hard to scout. If we call “53,” which is basically just UCLA into a side pick-and-roll, and they take away the entry pass, all these automatics kick in.
"So even though we called “53,” it becomes something else — 'centre opposite,' for example. So a scout can say, 'They ran 53 at 7:20 of the first quarter' but we actually ran something completely different. Now their whole scouting report is wrong. They have no idea what’s going on — and that’s what I love about it.
"Today, one of the most boring things for me is that everything is pick-and-roll. That involves two guys, and everybody else just stands around."
Shaw revealed the triangle needed buy-in from all five players on the floor.
"I’d argue that when Shaq and Kobe were together — especially early on when Kobe just chased the ball — our second unit actually executed the triangle better," Shaw said.
"We had to. When the second group came in — me, Rob [Horry], Rick Fox, Fish — we ran it properly. We might have one of those guys out there, but the rest of us had to execute. We were older — me, Harp, John Salley — but we knew how to read it. You throw it in, the defender turns his head, you cut by him.
You just let the offense dictate what happens. You can’t really plan for that.
"Ironically, when I was going on head coaching interviews, all the GMs were saying, 'Don’t come in here talking that triangle shit. We’re not running the triangle here'.
"But I’d sit down and show them film of their teams, and say: 'Well, that’s a triangle action. And this is a triangle action'."
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