All of these alterior factors that may or may not exist in some form or another can be described, but the fact remains, its kind of tough to give any credence to an arguement that basically strips all credit from a coach that has 11 championships. I mean comon.

1 is a fluke, 2 could be just an awesome group of elite players carrying a coach for a 2-season stretch. You get to 3, some respect to the coach, no matter HOW good his players are, needs to be given. But 11? 11 dude. 11. Eeeeeeeee levin!

Yes he had great players but he is more than just an X’s and O’s guy. That really wasn’t his thing anyway, at least on the offensive side of things. He always let Tex handle that and focused more on the defense.

His greatest attribute as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest of all time, was his ability to manage players – like a manager in baseball. They are more than just a coach, they are almost a pseudo therapist.

Yes, he has had some great players, but the entire rosters weren’t filled with “great” players. His ability to manage those 2 or 3 big egos and mesh the rest of the team and build unprecedented chemistry is the reason why his teams were able to run off so many championships. Talented players only take you so far. To manage them with the efficiency he has and the amount of unfettered winning that has come from that is unprecedented. Fact.

As far as the Walsh comparison, relative terms. Analogies. Football itself is more complex than basketball, I agree. Of course a football playbook is more vast than a basketball playbook. Different games. But that doesn’t mean the triple post isn’t complex for its time and place, on the basketball court.

The West Coast offense is complex and successful for the game of football. What you run in pee wee football is not. The triple post offense is complex and successful for the game of basketball. Barry’s “wide” or “passing game” offenses were not. All relative. Analogies.

The bottom line is, are you really going to tell me that Walsh (7 less championships than Jackson mind you) is a better coach than Jackson simply because his game is more complex? That’s like saying the world’s greatest swimming coach, who may have coached 20 gold medalists, isn’t as good of a coach as Walsh because swimming isn’t that hard? Really? That’s the stance? Wow.

Show me where “the triangle offense” is not part of the triple post? When people say “the triangle offense,” they are actually only talking about the “sideline triangle series” of the entire triple post system, which has many different series. As options are the branches of the trunk of the sideline triangle series, the sideline triangle series is a branch in the trunk of the triple post system

Yes, I agree that “the triangle,” as in the particular series, wasn’t Tex’s. He learned the series from Barry. But he then added it as only one series of many in his larger Triple Post. Coaches always mix in a little something here and there that they have learned from their mentor, as part of their own, bigger idea. Such is true in this case.

I think we agree on this fact, just describe it differently.

Watch yer back esay..

1) The triangle offensive in its original inception is not a triple post offense. That is a theory within a theory. It is like adding caramal sauce to a sundae covered in pre-existing chocolate.
2) Owen, since when do W’s in the regular season w/ pro’s mean much? Answer that question and we can talk about the 93-94′ season.
3) The game of football is FAR more complex than the game of basketball. Come on, I grew up playing the sport, watching it hours on hours everday, and ended coaching it. Bill Walsh west coast offense is not a fair comparison to a triangular approach to an offense. Yes, I sait it, triangular, because its true.
4) It’s an opinion. It was a diagram of pop culture, money, entertainment. I believe P-Jax is overrated as is most NBA coaches today. The NBA is not built to withstand hard nosed guys ala Bo Ryan. Why? Because when they screw with star-fluidity, by exacting established set patterns, they upset superstars, who cause seats to sell, which upsets fans, and money becomes an issue. Simple sociology, psychology guys, come on.
5) Owen I never said it was “dead,” I said most are like puppet cheerleaders. To name a few who are legitimate coaches? Larry Brown, Greg Popovich, etc.
6) The difficulty, is that you guys are arguing from a “modern,” pespective, and I, “post-modern.” The difference between the two? Modern believes things act as machines, they are true, real, car-like. I do not deny the relevance of 30-70’s modern thinking, but side more with the post-modern, and approach that looks at everything as a relative term. “Coach,” or “Coaching,” can be defined in many ways. You guys obiviously have your stance, as I have mine.
7) I’ll Chris Sabo yo ass.

This is the true triple post bible http://www.amazon.com/Triple-Post-Offense-Book-Winter/dp/B000A7OVR6

Guard to guard drills are where you start, they are either used to break three-quarter court pressure or a way to hide behind your other guard open with a forcing #1 pass. 1 pass is your basic, unpressured starter in the sideline series.

1 can be achieved several ways. 1 can even be started by pushing forward to the corner. Off of 1 there are corner series options (corner forces center back screen for forward as well as corner pick and roll option), post series of options (sideline split, baseline cut and elbow screen option), as well as weakside offense.

Weakside is started by #2 pass, which is a forcing pass, or weak backdoor (forward to forward pass). If 2 pass is made weak forward and top of the circle execute #3 pass, the pinch post. Strongside offense splits off the center.

Pinch can handoff, execute an inside turn off of fake, or execute dribble weave option with guard coming out of the corner after splitting off the post.

If 3 pass can not be made, top of the circle exectues a forcing pass back to guard coming out of the corner after splitting off the post.

If, before all of this, 1 pass can not be made (go back to the biggest trunk of the sideline series tree), guard to guard pass to 1 pass makes the weakside become strong, as the opening guard sprints to corner. Center can fill or weak forward bends off of center to fill the post. Sideline series options then apply.

If 1 pass and guard to guard pass are both denied, center stems and guard squeeze is forced. This forces strongside forward through on a sideline backdoor cut as passing guard drops ball to stemming center. If backdoor pass isn’t made by center to forward, passer guard sags for split off the high elbow area with weak guard. Weak guard then squeezes around high elbow post and has any number of options to score around the squeeze.

If center is denied for squeeze, the last opener that is then forced is weak backdoor quickie, where weak forward flashes and weak guard makes midline backdoor cut. This combats extreme ball-denial man-to-man defenses.

These are just some basic descriptions of the most basic series, and I don’t want to get into the guard dribble (post interchange) series, guard inside screen series or solo series. This is just the hyper cliff notes in written word version, as I always feel more comfortable on a white board.

What I guess I’m trying to say is I have studied and have been taught this at seminar as well as taught it at the high school level, and basically, the offense is exponentially more than what some people think it is or give it credit for.

When I hear something I have invested in, have been taught and taught myself being bad-mouthed, I get a little defensive! Ha. You can understand.

Yes Phil learned from Tex but Bill learned from Paul Brown as well. Every great person learns from another. I don’t think you would make the same comparison about Walsh as you are Jackson, would you? I’m all for speaking your mind but how about some facts and some impartiality! 🙂

1) The “Cheerleader” concept- I think Phil is anything but. He is as far away from a cheerleader as anyone could be.

2) You brought up the 1993-94 season- so let’s talk about it. The year before, with MJ, the Bulls won 57 games and won the Championship. In 93-94, they won TWO less games without the player most people would call the greatest ever. TWO LESS GAMES. that would be akin to Kobe retiring and the Lakers winning TWO less games. Crazy. Yes, they lost in the 2nd round, but they lost to a Knicks team who was arguably the 2nd best team in the conference throughout the 90’s. Take a lesser player like LeBron away from the Cavs and see how that coach does the next year… Take other lesser players like Paul from the Hornets or Dwight Howard from the Magic and see how they do. You could say that Pippen was a HOFer, but he sure imploded MIGHTILY later in his career (without Phil). He was no leader Phil knows how to coach and the 93-94 season you cite is proof of that…

3) There are PLANNED and schemed variations of the offense. The NBA is not about guys just doing what they want to do. There is more scheming and offensive playcalling in the NBA than in college- straight from E.Muss’s lips to my ears. Players are so good offensively and defensively that it’s hard to tell when these things happen, but they do. The triangle is designed to basically let the defense show you their weakness and if you’re smart, you can attack that weakness. The Lakers’ offense looks similar sometimes because defenses dictate that. They give the Lakers what they think is the weakest part of their team on most nights. All the coaches in the NBA are smart and so they probably will do similar things to stop the Lakers.

4) Playoffs – Phil is one of the best playoff coaches ever. He will put more into scheming the playoffs than he ever does the regular season. And his team will be prepared. Even if they don’t execute, it definitely won’t be his fault.

5) Whether coaching is drawing up x’s and o’s or whether it’s managing people (and the truth is that it’s a lot of both), it’s definitely not dead in the NBA or anywhere else…