Basketball’s Winter
Jude P. Roque
Basketball is one of the most creative and continuously evolving sports ever known. There are thousands of offensive set plays, tactics and schemes that have been used by coaches and teams all throughout the history of the sport. One of the most popular, if not the most popular, offensive systems ever created is the Triangle Offense that became synonymous to basketball championships especially during the 1990’s. No less than His Airness himself, the great Michael Jordan, who’s still widely regarded as the greatest player of all time, owed part of his basketball immortality to the Triangle. Scottie Pippen too, Jordan’s sidekick, and later on Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. All four National Basketball Association (NBA) legends had been among the thousands that thrived in the game with this offensive system. And the man credited for the creation of the Triangle Offense is Fred “Tex” Winter, a highly regarded hoops mentor and tireless student of the game.
Winter became a household name in basketball during the glory years of the Jordan-led Chicago Bulls. Under head coach Phil Jackson, and with Winter as deputy, the Bulls collected six NBA crowns (1991-1993, 1996-1998) using the Triangle Offense. This was a time that saw the NBA having all these great stars like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Isaiah Thomas, Charles Barkley, Akeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, John Stockton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to name a few. But why Jordan, Pippen and the rest of the Bulls became so dominant was because of Winter’s Triangle, which was originally called the Triple-Post offense. Kobe and O’Neil likewise won NBA diadems with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000, 2001 and 2002, using the same system, and with Jackson and Winter at the coaching helm. It was a system that preached good spacing, constant ball movement, and accurate passing. While it took time to perfect, the Triangle worked wonders to many teams that embraced it. Among the eventual disciples of the Triangle was Tim Cone, the Philippine Basketball Association’s (PBA) winningest coach. Cone took to heart studying the Triangle and immediately sold it to his Alaska team. Soon after, Alaska dominated the PBA with this system, annexing so many championships. Cone also won titles with Purefoods and Ginebra using the Triangle. To this day, he still indoctrinates the system to his current Ginebra squad even as he added his own flavor through the years, tweaking some of the options to better suit his personnel. Among the other successful local coaches that adopted the Triangle are former Gilas coach Chot Reyes, Aric Del Rosario, Louie Alas, Joel Banal, Koy Banal and Luigi Trillo. Even Ateneo coach Tab Baldwin tapped the Triangle during his stints as national coach of Jordan and Lebanon.
I had the honor of meeting Winter here in Manila during a three-day coaching clinic in the early 2000’s organized by Reyes’ Asian Basketball Academy. About a hundred local coaches from different levels, including almost all PBA head coaches at the time, attended the clinic held at the old RFM Gym in Mandaluyong. There, he emphasized on the importance of the small stuff, like footwork, precise passing, good spacing, V-cuts, target hands, triple-threat position, shooting spots and timing. These were the real secret to the effectiveness of the Triangle. In the clinic, Winter sold his 1962 book “The Triple Post Offense, which contained 135 diagrams about the Triangle.
Winter became the Houston Rockets head coach in 1971 for three seasons after leading the Kansas State Wildcats to the NCAA Final Four in 1958 and 1964. But before his success as a hoops guru, Tex never had it easy in life after his father died when he was just ten years old. While in elementary, he had to work collecting boxes for a local baker in exchange for a day-old bread. In high school, Winter worked as a ball boy at Loyola University, where he met the legendary coach Pete Newell. Newell was the one who hired him to be the Rockets coach in ’71. He earned an athletics scholarship from Oregon State to become an accomplished pole vaulter, and almost made it to the US Olympic team. Winter died last Wednesday in his Manhattan, Kansas home. He was 96.
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