It's the 64 Million Dollar question. How does Phil see Melo as a player and how would he use him? My guess is that he would in fact use him in the Triangle not much differently than he would Kobe, but it's hard to say. Melo is certainly capable of scoring off screens with the jumper or a drive. It's not like he is just a jump shooter. The idea is to get Melo in a mismatch however you can and the Triangle would do that IMO.
Melo has the skills and quickness to be the Forward in that Triangle. The Key is bringing in the Center and PG who can run it intelligently and have the skills to pass and shoot the ball as needed.
In Triangle Offense, Cuts Are Sharp and So Is Learning CurveBy JONATHAN ABRAMS
Published: December 13, 2009
MINNEAPOLIS — The rookie point guard Jonny Flynn knew little about the triangle offense when he arrived in the N.B.A., other than that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant ran it as a conduit to championship after championship with the Bulls and the Lakers.
The Triangle Offense: Not Many Try and Few Succeed
Flynn has been cramming ever since. Kurt Rambis, the first-year Timberwolves coach and a student of the offense’s innovator, Tex Winter, has installed portions of it in Minnesota. Flynn initially thought of the offense as a freelance system that would cater to his skills with the ball.
He was wrong. The triangle offense is based on reads and rhythm, spacing and cutting. The players, beyond the center, are interchangeable. Guards play in the post, forwards on the wing. The goal is always to take the path of least resistance — unless you are a rookie learning it.
“It’s the hardest transition in any sport I’ve ever played,” Flynn said recently.
The offense can seem to be mystical and mythical. To some, it is easily digestible. Others claim it is too lethargic for the fast and frenetic N.B.A. Despite the triangle’s success — 10 of the last 19 N.B.A. champions showcased the offense — few possess the time, trust or diligence to install it.
Their reasons are plentiful, and skeptics are quick to point out that Coach Phil Jackson captured all 10 of those titles with Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant at his disposal. (For three of them, he had Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.)
“You’ve got to spend a lot of time on it, on its reads,” Denver Nuggets Coach George Karl said. “Most coaches are too impatient to sacrifice time teaching at the defensive end of the court for an offensive system.”
Few beyond Jackson try. Rambis is the latest coach on a short list who have, and all have links to Jackson. Tim Floyd, who succeeded Jackson in Chicago, and Jim Cleamons, a longtime Jackson assistant who briefly coached the Dallas Mavericks, had uninspired results with it.
“It has such a negative aspect to it because people don’t understand it,” Rambis said, adding that few know how to teach the offense correctly. “They just assume that you have to have Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant to make it work, but that’s not true.”
Winter refined the offense created by Sam Barry, the former Southern California and Iowa coach, who originally called it the triple-post offense.
The triangle, created by the post, wing and corner players, revolves around seven guiding principles: the ball handler reading the defense; correct decisions based on the defense; penetration through a pass into the post; separation of 15 to 20 feet for all the offensive players; movement through sharp cuts; interchangeability in positions; and balance for defensive transition.
The triangle differs from more traditional N.B.A. offenses because it presents more options for the five players on the court. There are no set plays, just many possibilities. And when all else fails, the triangle summons a player like Bryant or Jordan to create his own scoring opportunity. Jackson installed the offense in Chicago with Winter as an assistant to neutralize the Detroit Pistons’ defensive strategy of isolating and physically challenging Jordan. Rambis served as an assistant under Jackson and alongside Winter in Los Angeles.
At Rambis’s job interview with the Timberwolves, David Kahn, the team president, stipulated he wanted the team to have an up-tempo mind-set. Rambis agreed, but he said the players needed an offensive set to flow into should they not score in transition.
He transferred only certain aspects of the offense to Minnesota. He uses one guard at the top instead of two, to showcase Flynn. The offense’s main payoff, Rambis said, is that secondary players become involved.
He explained this inside his office at the Target Center as the city experienced its first snowstorm of the season. Rambis departed the California beaches for here. If anyone other than Jackson has faith in the system, it is Rambis.
“It really teaches players how to play,” he said. “It teaches players how to move without the basketball, how to read defenses, how to play together.”
In Minnesota, the onus is on Flynn to make the correct reads and passes to start the offense. The fact that Flynn is a rookie and played in a pick-and-roll system at Syracuse is not lost on Rambis, or on Flynn.
“It’s the toughest position to learn in this league, and then I threw this on him on top of that,” Rambis said. “So, he struggled with it, and there’s a frustration process that goes along with it.”
Flynn is near the top of most statistical categories among rookies. Rambis and Kahn maintain that Flynn will develop more rapidly by learning additional sets and styles.
“I’m in the triangle now and it’s going to make me a better player learning this offense and learning how to get mine off of catches-and-shoots and running the floor and things like that,” Flynn said, before admitting: “But I’d rather be running pick-and-rolls.”
He is learning on a nightly basis. There is still much work to be done and tape to be studied. “It’s been tough,” forward Kevin Love said. “Especially since, let’s face it, we don’t have a player like Kobe Bryant on our team.”
It is a learning process. Most nights, Minnesota looks like a 3-21 team with a rookie point guard as its conductor. The Timberwolves are 27th among the league’s 30 teams in scoring at 92.5 points per game.
“The biggest thing is they don’t manipulate the players,” a Western Conference scout said. “One of the things that makes the triangle tough is, pretty much besides the center, every other piece is interchangeable. The Timberwolves have it, but it doesn’t look as crisp. As you get better talent, the triangle looks better.”
Still, Rambis’s success in Minnesota may eventually be the greatest barometer of the triangle’s staying power. The Milwaukee Bucks, the Indiana Pacers and the Nets used portions of the triangle in the recent past, as did Rick Adelman when he coached the Sacramento Kings. Floyd compiled a 41-190 record in parts of four seasons with the Bulls and did not install the offense at later coaching stops with the Hornets or at Southern Cal.
In Chicago, Jerry Krause, a former Bulls general manager, developed a rift with Jordan and wanted to prove that the offense worked well without him. He instructed Floyd to stay with the triangle offense.
“It was encouraged,” said Floyd, now a Hornets assistant. “At that time there was a lot of discussion as to why the Bulls were successful. Was it the players?”
If one of the triangle’s main components is sharing, Cleamons was sabotaged in Dallas. He went 32-70 in a little more than a season there as his main players — Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn and Jim Jackson — bickered.
Even so, Cleamons remains one of the offense’s biggest advocates. He says that Rambis will succeed by putting his own imprint on it. He also says the offense will survive once Jackson retires.
“The triangle is literally a junior high school offense, so if junior high players can run the triangle, then, certainly, young players of this caliber can run it,” Cleamons said. “It’s a mind-set. You just have to be open, you have to be receptive and you have to be willing to realize that you can’t dominate the basketball. If you are good to the offense, the offense will be good to you.”
3/13/2014 5:27 AM
