How Tex Winter's triangle offense changed the NBA
Tex Winter seems like a coach gym rats see in games all around town. The one who nods his head when looking his way because he's seen you around as well. The fixture. He's the coach that often brooms the dusty floor just because he feels like it. Those curious of him observe his mannerisms; they can almost hear the mental notes he's obsessively taking when watching any game regardless of level. He's paying attention to the court; giving advice to young ones who can't yet touch the net. He offers hardcore encouragement as they try and try again and again, and as those young ones eventually develop into the best pros, they'll look back and salute silently that old coach who cared because he loved the game and its future.Tex Winter, learned the triangle offense from Sam Barry at USC. Tex winter coached for 30 years on the collegiate level as a head coach. He was legendary in combining his knowledge of the game with the outside the game lessons of Phil Jackson. Those unaware of who Tex Winter was saw him on the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers' benches and in no way could possibly understand how influential he had been to the game of basketball.
Tex Winter's accomplishments
Tex Winter (given the name Tex after his family moved to California from Texas, was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. He passed away in 2018 at age 96. His twin sister, Mona, was born 15 minutes prior to Tex. His is a remarkable story.
- Ballboy for legendary hoops coach Pete Newel at Loyola
- Pete Newel hired Tex Winter to be Houston Rockets coach for two years
- Naval fighter pilot who was grounded after his brother's plane was shot down
- Might have been an Olympian out of Oregon State in the pole vault if the Olympics weren't canceled
- Chuck Taylor was his commanding officer when Tex Winter played hoops in the NAVY
- After war, he enrolled at USC, learned the triangle from Sam Barry
- Pole vauter at USC where his teammates were future basketball pros Bill Sharman, Geno Rock andAlex Hannum.
- National Coach of the Year in 1958
- 453–334 in 30 years as head coach at Marquette, Kansas State, Washington, Northwestern and Long Beach State
- Assistant to Phil Jackson on 9 NBA championships with Bulls and Lakers
- Also won with Lakers as a consultant in 2009
- Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame
- Kansas Sports Hall of Fame
- National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame
Matthew Mauer, the sui generis mind behind The Draft Review, offers this of Tex Winter: "Winter's Triangle Offense concept was practiced while coaching at Kansas State in the 60's. The offense's biggest gift is it helps force elite offensive talents like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan to give up the ball -- which fosters the basketball environment of a team offense and not an individual one."
Spacing is the major key, as is the reaction to the defense. Players are 15-18 feet apart. Three form a triangle with the other two on the weakside. The action runs off the reaction of the defense. Very few plays are called, and the triangle is extremely difficult to trap because it forces the defense to guard both sides of the court. Players operate out of 5 spaces on the floor, making it difficult to help out. Confusion is all over the floor, and the structure of the triangle gives the offense an advantage over that confusion to exploit.
Straight no chaser
The people I've spoken to about Tex Winter say he is as straight up as they come. To have Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Shaq, and Scottie Pippen run the triangle? Imagine those practices, and what was being said in points of disagreement. When those players and coaches did agree, the triangle was the biggest weapon in the game. “It’s like five fingers in a glove,” Tex Winter once said. As Mauer stated above, it made ball dominate players operate as a team instead of an offensive star breaking the triangle and scoring at will. Tex Winter wants everyone involved, and that team within the triangle won 11 NBA championships in 20 years.
"He was a master of the triangle. I liked to go out of the triangle every now and then, but, he would just convey the message that it works and we’d sit and watch film and he had to say, "Sometimes you have to be not Shaq the dominant guy, you got to be like a decoy, get others involved."
So imagine if the triangle never happened. What would basketball resemble?
Tex Winter won 9 NBA Championships as an assistant to Phil Jackson and gave the sport a massive boost with the triangle offense. With the Bulls, it made Michael Jordan unstoppable; with the Lakers, it gave Shaq and Kobe the movement and spacing they needed to dominate the league at that time.
No current NBA team runs the triangle
Tex Winter brought Sam Barry into the future of basketball, and Winter held on just long enough to prove Barry's scheme could work in any era. No team runs the triangle in today's NBA, and while that is almost disrespectful to the sport, no wonder the current game is seen as soft. Hopefully one day soon, some young kid at the gym trying to jump and touch the net, remembers the story his dad told him about that old coach at the gym. That coach at the gym with that gold shiny triangle in his back pocket.