City of Angles

First things first. The name, “Bulls’ Sideline Triangle,” has to go.

Now, Lakers’ Sideline Triangle has a ring to it.

Kobe Bryant brings the ball up court and passes in to Shaquille O’Neal, then goes to the corner.

OK, that passing business is going to require a change too. And Bryant bringing the ball up, that’s a bit of a switch.

O’Neal looks down, sees paint below his feet, wheels to the basket and dunks.

Been there, done that.

Or O’Neal looks down, sees unpainted floor and sends the ball back to Bryant in the corner.

Uh, a little alteration is going to be needed there too.

Bryant sends it to J.R. Reid on the sideline, 15 to 18 feet away and at the other corner of the triangle, then heads to the basket, cutting off O’Neal, getting the ball and dunking.

And high in the Staples Center, a voice bellows out, “What’s the big deal? I saw that 50 years ago, down the street.”

He’s right. Well, maybe not the dunk.

“It’s right out of Sam Barry’s playbook,” says the guru of the triangle, Tex Winter, who introduced it to Chicago shortly after Phil Jackson took over as the Bulls’ coach.

Chicago won six championships with it.

Barry coached Winter at USC in 1947, then recommended him for his first coaching job, as an assistant to another Trojan alumnus, Jack Gardner.

“At USC, we called it the ‘center-opposite offense,’ where you overloaded one side of the floor and sent the center to the other side,” said Winter, 77, whose Southern California ties include Huntington Park High and Compton College.

“Sam Barry would still recognize some of it--the spacing, the ball movement.”

He would hardly recognize the way it’s played, largely because of the players. Not that USC had slouches back then. The front court was Winter, Alex Hannum and Bill Sharman.

“Let’s see,” said Sharman, now a Laker vice president, ever a Trojan, laughing as he spoke. “Hannum had two NBA championship rings, Winter has six rings and I have 10 rings with the Celtics and Lakers. To our knowledge, nobody at UCLA ever had an NBA championship ring as a coach.”

In Chicago, it took a selling job by Winter and Jackson to make the triangle offense work, and it took about 18 months to implement. Mostly, Michael Jordan had to be sold, because it required him to give up the ball more often, probably to score less.

At least until crunch time.

“Usually coaches have to coax their stars to produce more,” Jackson writes in his autobiography, “Sacred Hoops.”

“In a way, I was asking Michael to produce less. How much less, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps enough to prevent him from winning his fourth straight scoring title.”

Perhaps enough for the Bulls to win the first of six NBA championships.

“Phil wanted a style of basketball like he had when he played for the Knicks, with [Dave] DeBusschere, [Bill] Bradley and those guys,” Winter said. “It was a team game, and you needed to spread the floor. You’re looking for something from all five players and not just a star.

“Any player, and in my mind Shaq and Kobe are among the best, can play in the triangle and they can make the triangle even better.”

When you look at Chicago and the Lakers, you have to wonder. There is no Jordan in Los Angeles . . . or anywhere else, for that matter.

But the Bulls won with Bill Cartwright and Luc Longley at center, and they have never played in O’Neal’s neighborhood.

“We say that the center has to be a feeder first,” Winter said. “But if he’s in the lane, he lays it in, whether there’s a guy on him or not. If he’s not in the lane, he’s a feeder.”

And the triangle does not use a point guard, which would seem to work with the Lakers, who really don’t have one.

In Chicago, Jordan and the guard du jour handled the ball. Pippen often was that other guard, joining Jordan in the backcourt, where they overwhelmed smaller defenders.

“It’s an offense that requires spacing on the floor and rotating with a purpose,” Winter said. “I don’t know what Phil’s planning with the Lakers, assuming he becomes their coach, but I suspect that it would work well with them.”

First comes the sale, which would seem to be easier this time. When the Bulls bought into the triangle, it wasn’t as if it had a strong NBA track record. Winter had used it as the coach at Houston, but struggled because passing was a foreign concept to Elvin Hayes.

But the Lakers can look at those championship rings won by Jackson and the Bulls. If that’s not enough to sell the offense, why buy the coach?

“And then it requires attention to fundamentals, to things like two-hand overhead pass, chest pass, things like that,” Winter said. “When we did those drills, Michael and Scottie Pippen and some of those guys laughed, but then they saw how it worked in a game and it made sense to them.”

Taking millionaires back to high school workout days might require all of the motivational skills Jackson can bring with him.

“Apparently that will be a challenge,” Winter said. “That’s where Phil comes in. He has the ability, and to his credit, he sold Michael on the idea that everyone was going to have to be involved for it to work.”

In the end, the triangle works when it’s played unselfishly, when each player on the floor has the ball about 20% of the time and when each realizes his role and also realizes that everyone has a role in the offense.

It works when each realizes that the offense resists double-teaming because of the spacing on the floor, and when each realizes that “when it’s worked right, he can get the ball in position to take it to the basket and score,” Winter said.

There could be another salesman afoot. Winter’s contract with the Bulls runs out June 30. A return to Southern California, where he also coached at Long Beach State, might be a nice way to round out a career.

Or close a triangle, if you prefer.

“I’m sure I’m going to talk with Phil,” Winter said. “Not that I would be presumptuous enough to think that he would have me there, but I think I’ll be talking with him.”