As the basketball game evolve, triangle offense becomes outdated to overcome challenges in today's game. Therefore, Knicks player want to ditch triangle offense who has been a signature strategy of their team president Phil Jackson.
Head coach Jeff Hornacek said in an interview with New York Daily News that the players will not run the antiquated triangle offense. He said that based on the past two seasons experience, the signature strategy of Phil Jackson is not suitable to excel in the modern basketball game.
Hornacek pointed out the problem with triangle offense when he was asked about comment from ESPN analyst Chauncey Billups last week. The former New York Knicks point guard said that his former team run a very bad system and the system is triangle offense. Hornacek said that the problem with triangle offense is it runs in a slow pace, while most NBA teams run the offense quicker and triangle offense is not suitable for the quick game pace.
He said that teams run variation of triangle offense in the halfcourt play. But in today's basketball game, the set piece is determined in the full court to score quick points as soon as the team is in possession. Hornacek admitted that he would use triangle offense in the dead ball or following timeouts, but running a slow pace triangle offense for the entire game does not suit the Knicks' players characteristic.
Knicks president Phil Jackson also admitted that his system is not suitable for the 2016 basketball game. In a Shaquille O'Neal's The Big Podcast with Shaq on Monday, as reported by Bleacher Report he said triangle offense is a difficult system to follow for today's game.
"The triangle is a different story," he said. 'How do you teach a system that requires so many fundamental skills to players that really haven't been taught some of that basic stuff with footwork and passing and all those rudiment type of skills that are learned"
Knicks will still use the triangle offense in the half court situation, but as Hornacek said the team will use different strategy for the entire game.