Lakernoise

Don’t cry for the Los Angeles Lakers just yet, but new forward Ron Artest has slowed up the team’s use of its famed triangle offense. That’s nothing new really. It always takes months, even years, for new players to find a comfort level in the controlled offense.

The Lakers knew that last summer when they signed Artest and passed on bringing back promising young forward Trevor Ariza. Artest brings plenty of defense to help make up for his deficits on offense. But the Lakers won the league championship last year in part because they were finally able to execute the complicated offense at a high level.

This year that simply hasn’t been the case. The offense requires that players be able to make sophisticated “reads” of the action to trigger facets of the offense. Artest simply isn’t ready to make many of those reads.

Lakers Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom report that the team hasn’t been able to use the more complex levels of the offense because Artest isn’t ready to go there.

Artest’s adjustment might have gone better if backup forward Luke Walton hadn’t been troubled by back problems. Although he’s faced consistency issues over the years, Walton has always been a smart passer and a key sub who makes the offense work. Walton’s absence for much of the season has made Artest’s protracted adjustment all the more painful, although there is some hope that Walton could return to action by the playoffs in April.

Usually in March, coach Phil Jackson’s teams are starting to round into major form, but the Lakers show some uncharacteristic signs of struggle this year down the stretch. A recent three-game losing streak has Lakers fans fussing that Jackson too long clings to veterans like 36-year-old guard Derek Fisher. Jackson likes Fisher, even at an advanced age, because of his competitiveness, his ability even still to pressure the ball on defense, and most of all, his knack for getting the team into the offense and guiding its execution.

Fans who complain about a Fisher or a Walton often miss the point. Jackson’s teams are always greater than the sum of their parts. That is the main power of the offense, it’s ability to create opportunity for lesser players. Jackson’s teams have always shown an ability to bind these lesser players with stars like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

Like other critics, Jordan himself once snidely derided the triangle as an “equal-opportunity offense” because it required that he share the ball with less talented teammates. But Jordan later said repeatedly that the offense gave his teams an operating format, one that allowed them to relate to each other and become champions.

The numbers back that up. In the 19 seasons that Jackson and triangle guru Tex Winter have employed the offense in the NBA, it has won 1,089 regular season games and lost just 453, an astounding winning percentage of .706.

The offense has been even more effective in the playoffs, where Jackson has used it to win 10 titles in those 19 seasons, with two more appearances in the league championship series. It has allowed Jackson to win 209 of the 300 playoff games he has coached. The Lakers recent troubles are unfortunate, because there’s more than a bit of pressure on the team this season, with Jackson’s future unclear because the team’s front office hasn’t offered him a contract.

Even if Jackson does coach the Lakers or some other team next season, it seems the remarkable run of the triangle offense is just about up, its era coming to a close. Tex Winter predicted as much a few years back.

Why? Other coaches have tried the offense in the NBA and failed famously because of the time commitment and learning curve for professional players. Only coaches with the stature of Jackson and Winter, supported by stars with the abilities of Jordan and Bryant, have made it a success. As tirelessly as he has promoted his offense over the decades, Winter himself would admit it’s an awkward fit with modern pro players.

MINDS MADE UP?

Back in 2004 when he was seething, Lakers owner Jerry Buss would have a few pops and tell anyone within earshot — even a Lakers beat reporter or two — how much he despised the triangle. Buss made it clear even to random strangers. He loved fast-break basketball ala the Lakers’ vintage Showtime teams, and he was tired of the unbalanced floor look that Jackson’s triangle teams employed.

Former Lakers VP Jerry West worked with Buss for years and knows him well. West says that when Buss makes up his mind on something, he rarely changes it.

Even though Jackson’s team had won three straight championships, 2000-2002, with the triangle, as soon as the Lakers stumbled in the 2004 championship series, the owner gave his approval for his son Jim Buss to fire Jackson as coach.

The triangle offense got a reprieve the next year when Buss abruptly rehired Jackson. Why did the Lakers owner relent and return to the triangle? 1) Because he faced a well-organized revolt by season ticket holders who demanded Jackson’s return; and 2) because Jim Buss’s hiring of Rudy Tomjanovich proved such a disaster, financially and competitively.

But six years later those basic feelings of the Lakers owner haven’t changed. Buss and his son have held off on making Jackson a contract offer for next year, and they’ve implied they want him to take a pay cut from his $12 million salary.

The circumstances mean that the 2010 playoffs are a referendum on the offense pioneered by longtime Jackson assistant Tex Winter. If Jackson somehow drives the Lakers to a repeat of their 2009 NBA championship, then the Busses may begrudgingly invite Jackson back for a shot at a three-peat.

One key inside observer says Jerry and Jim Buss are calculating that fans won’t mind if Jackson doesn’t return next year, that there won’t be a revolt by season ticket holders this time around.

It seems showtime vs. triangle are the competing visions for the team, with former Lakers greats and some factions in the front office feeding the desire of Jim and Jerry Buss to move away from the formula that has won four championships over the past decade.

At the center of the controversy is the development of young center Andrew Bynum. The Busses have great belief in his future, and they have articulated a beef that Jackson doesn’t have a reputation for developing young players.

It’s certainly true that Jackson prefers to rely on veterans to run his teams, just as it’s true that Winter himself upbraided Jackson about his handling of a young Kobe Bryant. But the Busses might be overlooking Jackson’s track record for developing players such as Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant in Chicago, where Jackson guided the Bulls to six championships.

Another irony in the Buss opposition is that the triangle, or “triple-post” offense as it is also called, is great for getting the ball to post scorers, such as Shaquille O’Neal or Bynum.

Critics such as Orlando Magic assistant coach Brendan Malone, who has battled Jackson’s triangle teams many times over the years, point out that the Lakers defeated the Magic in last year’s championship because they used the screen and roll to devastating effect, rather than the triangle.

But Winter has long countered that the triangle gives teams a basic philosophy from which to operate. That means a triangle team can use its format to employ screen and roll, fast breaks, or any other number of offensive looks at any time, Winter has explained.

“The triangle is a philosophy for playing the game that allows you to just about use whatever you need in any given circumstance,” Winter once explained. The 88-year-old Winter continues to recover in Oregon from the effects of a stroke suffered last April and may soon move back to Kansas, where he enjoyed years as a highly successful college coach.

For all of Jackson’s 18 NBA coaching seasons, Winter has been a strong presence with his teams, alternately teaching and sternly correcting players who violate the principles of his offense. In all of those seasons, Winter has been an infectious promoter of the offense he developed. He has not been able to fill that role this season, leaving Jackson to press on without him.

HALL OF FAME?

Like his offense itself, Winter also faces a referendum this spring as he attempts yet again to gain election to the Basketball Hall of Fame. His name has been put into nomination many times, but he has been turned down because the bulk of his NBA experience has been as an assistant coach hired as a mentor for a younger coach, Jackson. Winter has a brilliant record as a coach for several colleges, most notably Kansas State where his teams were among the nation’s best for a number of years.

USA Basketball’s Jerry Colangelo says the Hall of Fame is trying to expand its scope to take in a rare and special genius like Winter. But this year’s field of Hall nominees is crowded with excellent players, coaches and teams and Winter once again faces uphill odds for selection. Hall of Famers Bill Walton and Magic Johnson both said Winter deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, as have many others.

Walton pointed out that generations of players have absolutely loved playing for the passionate Winter. Walton also said that of the special generation of coaches who competed against and successfully challenged John Wooden, Winter is the only major figure yet to be named to the Hall. At a time that the highly successful offense he created is being challenged, Winter is without voice to speak up for it or himself.

Jackson, though, has been diligently coaching in his absence, and although Winter’s strong presence has been missed, if the Lakers find success this post-season it could well mean yet another season for the offense.

Otherwise, this could be one of the last pro seasons for the triangle system, which is still used in pieces at some colleges, mostly by women’s teams at Tennessee and Connecticut. Winter has long predicted that his system wouldn’t be used much beyond his and Jackson’s tenure as coaches. A basketball visionary in so many ways, Winter also seems to have a clear view of the future for a system he created.

Roland Lazenby is the author of “Jerry West, The Life And Legend Of A Basketball Icon,” recently released by ESPN Books.