One of the ways Phil Jackson was supposed to rescue the New York Knicks was through the use of his acclaimed triangle offense. The team’s performance proves that it has not worked out just yet.
Kobe Bryant must have a hard time understanding why.
While speaking at his basketball camp recently, Kobe was asked how long it took him to learn the triangle offense when he played for Jackson.
“About 2 days,” he said, via KobeTeam.com. “I studied the triangle offense for years before. Watching the Bulls play. It was very familiar to me. The concept was something that I grasped very quickly. A couple of days.”
Put it this way — J.R. Smith has no idea how Bryant was able to do that.
The Knicks won just 17 games last season, and most of the players on the roster seemed so lost with the triangle offense that Jackson said to “forget about it” at one point.
Now, Kobe is teaching it to his campers.
“It’s a challenging offense to learn.” he said. “The one thing I’ve always heard about kids, about youth basketball, you have to give them the very very basic concepts, that you can’t give them structured offense. I don’t believe that. If you want our kids to be better, to be the best version of themselves, you have to challenge them. Kids, as you guys have proved, yet and yet again this year, will respond to that challenge and exceed expectations. I believe you guys are capable of holding on to those concepts. And when you learn those concepts at an early age, how much better are you going to be when you are older?”
In other words, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Jackson is finding that out the hard way with the Knicks, and he has already traded certain players because of it. The recent comments Jackson made about the state of the NBA say it all. It’s quite possible the game has passed him by in certain ways.
