Timberwolves: Mysterious Triangle

Whether in Bermuda or Minnesota, there's just something mystifying about a triangle.

Basketball is a relatively simple endeavor, but introduce the concept of geometry into its equation and heads explode, particularly those of sportswriters.

David Kahn promised his Timberwolves would run and run after he was introduced as the team's new basketball boss last spring. Eleven games and 10 consecutive losses into a fresh season, the Wolves are waiting for Kevin Love's first appearance and laboring to learn new coach Kurt Rambis' complex system of play that, depending on who you ask, may or may not be the renown triangle offense he learned under mentor Phil Jackson in Los Angeles.

"I probably never should have described it as the triangle," Rambis said. "I should have just termed it our 'flow' offense and that would have been the end of it."

Whatever you call it, Rambis calls the elements he has borrowed from Jackson -- who has won a record 10 NBA titles with an offense he learned from old-timer Tex Winter -- just a "small part of what we do" and estimates its inclusion at "less than 20 percent" of his team's offense.

Just don't tell that to his players, whose heads have twirled learning a style of play -- a passing offense predicated on the anachronistic notions of ball movement, self-sacrifice and reactive team play -- unlike any they've known all their lives.

"I think it is a triangle," rookie point guard Jonny Flynn said. "If you look at the Lakers and what they do, it's almost the exact same thing. They might run it a little differently because of the players they have and they're so used to running it. You wouldn't understand how complicated it is, especially for a guy like me who's used to his whole life being a guy off the bounce."

'The right way to play'

The differences between the Wolves and champion Lakers are too obvious to mention, although on this topic Rambis suggests the main one is this: "They're always in it, we're not always in it."

"It" is a way of playing that Jackson adopted with Chicago when he was a rookie NBA head coach 20 years ago to circumvent the Detroit Pistons' "Jordan Rules" defensive strategies. In doing so, he asked superstar Michael Jordan to share the basketball -- and the responsibility -- rather than shoulder it all himself.

Jackson, in turn and in time, became known as the "Zen master" en route to winning those 10 NBA titles first with Jordan and then Kobe Bryant.

"Everybody in this game runs parts of it," Jackson said. "Don Nelson, Cotton Fitzsimmons, going back to Bill Sharman, they all ran this offense. But it didn't have that name. As soon as you run it and they say it's a triangle, people go, 'Oh, man ...'

"It's just basketball. The triangle is just basketball. Instead of calling it play No. 2, you're just running reactive off a sequence of passes. It makes players read the defense without coaches having to call plays or just being one-minded."

So what's all the mystery?

"People don't understand it, they don't appreciate it and there aren't too many people who know how to teach it," Rambis said. "That's the way I grew up playing basketball. So much of what's happened in the NBA and AAU programs is individualistic, and I just don't think that's the right way to play. I don't think it's necessarily fun to watch. It's not necessarily fun for the other four guys who don't have the basketball."

So, basically, it's a system that goes against everything for which the NBA now stands.

"The offense has worked just about everywhere it has been, but in a different era," said Memphis coach Lionel Hollins, who was a NBA rookie guard in 1975. "Phil Jackson is the only coach who has been able to get it across with players believing in it. This is the era of young players who haven't run an offense their whole life. They probably have run one play: Get somebody the ball and get out of his way.

"It's difficult to learn because you have to know when to shoot, when to pass and when to dribble. It's very tough to teach it to a young team because those guys are used to just ripping and running."

Can you win? A mixed bag

The contradiction here: An offense that demands seamless team play has won 10 NBA titles since 1991 featuring two of the greatest individual talents who have ever played.

Does it take the superstar talent of Jordan or Bryant to maximize the triangle offense? Or does it take their stature and clout to convince their teammates to buy into the concept? Why hasn't anybody other than Jackson utilized it and won big with it in modern times?

"Because it hasn't worked for anybody else," Milwaukee coach Scott Skiles said. "The good thing about it is, you have a lot of ball and player movement. The bad thing is, you have a lot of ball and player movement. The ball ends up with five seconds left [on the shot clock] in the hands of somebody who you don't want to have the ball. The great bailout players can just manufacture a shot. It makes it all look good."

Kahn drafted point guard Ricky Rubio and Flynn consecutively last summer, then signed Ramon Sessions in September when Rubio decided to stay in Spain. In August, he hired a coach who seemingly runs a system that might not minimize the point-guard position, but certainly doesn't emphasize it.

"If you want the point guard to pound the air out of the ball until it gets a headache, the triangle definitely is not the offense," Hollins said. "But the offense is for five players, not just one. The point guard still can penetrate, still can score. People said the triangle would hinder Michael, but Michael still averaged 30 points and led the league in scoring. I don't think the triangle has anything to do with minimizing anyone's game. It's a five-man game."