The Triangle Offense, an existential basketball strategy so complex that it was quite simple, and so simple that it was maddeningly complex, died of complications related to confusion on Wednesday. It was ∞ years old.

The Triangle, also known as the Triple-Post Offense, the Sideline Triangle Offense, and the Trade-Me-Coach Offense, reportedly collapsed under the weight of its own pretension in the front office of the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. But no one with the requisite training in astrophysics and Zen Buddhism could be located in time to provide resuscitation.

Its demise coincided with the decision by Knicks management to dismiss Phil Jackson, the team’s president for the past three years and the Triangle’s closest living relative. Mr. Jackson was so attuned to its almost mystical intricacies that he became the “Triangle whisperer” — although critics say that his channeling of the offense could not be understood at any volume of voice.

The Triangle Offense was born on the hardwood courts of the University of Southern California in the 1940s, the offspring of the university’s innovative basketball coach, Justin McCarthy “Sam” Barry. It was then raised and refined by one of Barry’s many acolytes, Morice Fredrick “Tex” Winter, who attempted to capture its many mysteries in a book called “The Triple-Post Offense,” published in 1962.