The triangle offense can be a divisive topic in the NBA. It’s the “sharing is caring” offense that helped the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls to six titles and the Shaquille O’Neal/Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers to three titles in their era and five titles total for Phil Jackson’s Lakers teams overall. However, the times it hasn’t involved Jordan or Kobe, it’s been a mess. It’s a bit too complicated for a lot of players to grasp right away, and that’s why most good offenses have taken elements from it but not strictly installed it as the absolute offensive system.
Count Derrick Rose in as someone who finds it complicated. He told reporters after a New York Knicks practice this week that it’s “complicated” as a system and that Jackson got involved in the practice in a grumpy manner after the Knicks weren’t throwing the ball into the post enough for his liking.
Rose said Phil got involved at one point because they didn’t throw the ball into the post. “He kind of came over, kind of grumpy.”
These are the concerns for having a point guard like Rose running a triangle-based team. Rose likes to have the ball in his hands a lot to create for him or his teammates. The triangle asks that he gives the ball up early, run through the motions of the read-and-react, and then get it back to score against a defender out of position from the ball and player movement. Consider that Rose isn’t a good 3-point shooter to help space the floor either and it just could get cluttered until he figures out the entirety of the system.
It’s also why it makes sense that Jeff Hornacek wants to push the ball early when they get defensive stops to make sure he can maximize Rose and his speed quite a bit. Then if they can’t get a good shot out of the transition offense, they can hopefully have match-up issues from a retreating defense and the triangle can exploit those issues.
However, you need everyone to understand the offense for that to happen and they’re not there yet. At least, Rose isn’t.
Courtesy: CBS Sports
