Illustration by Victor Kerlow

A_s the Knicks begin their inaugural season under the team’s new president, Phil Jackson, fans are getting their first glimpses of Jackson’s signature triangle offense, the byzantine strategic scheme that propelled teams he’s coached to a record eleven N.B.A. championships. In an effort to decode the much heralded but rarely understood triangle offense, I offer this brief, lightly researched guide._

One of the central tenets of the triangle offense is that there should be at least fifteen feet between teammates at all times. This is accomplished through a variety of dynamic dribble-weaves and back-door cuts, as well as an almost visceral dislike of the players for one another.

Preceding the tipoff, the starting players must stand in a straight line in order of descending height. This does not offer any competitive advantage, but it is considered “cuter.”

Quick decisions are critical. The point guard must pass at the “first” opportunity rather than at the “best” opportunity, never holding on to the ball for longer than two seconds. If no pass is available, the point guard must call a time-out. The ball is then placed in a velvet pouch for the duration of the time-out, after which an assistant coach determines whether the ball has “forgiven” the point guard. If it has, the guard may return to the game. If not, player and ball are whisked to the New Mexico desert for a weeklong “period of reflection” among the Navajo. If, at the end of the week, the ball still has not forgiven him, the point guard is traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

There are a number of ways for the triangle system to break a pressure defense, and almost none of them involve travelling back in time to change one tiny thing that, a million years later, causes the opposing team’s hands to turn into lobster claws. That one is hilarious, though.

The most fundamental element of the offense is, of course, the triangle, which is formed by two players properly spaced along the three-point line and a third player in the post. Once a perfect triangle is formed, a designated assistant rings a small bell, at which point all of the players stop what they are doing, clap three times, and turn around in place while waving their hands in a fun dance called either the Triangle Shimmy (strong side) or the Triangle Shuffle (weak side). The youngest player on the court is then obligated to sing “The Hypotenuse Song,” in a sweet, clarion voice. Then, assuming that there is time left on the shot clock, everyone scrambles around and tries to score, or something.

In order to cultivate a team-first attitude, assistant coaches are encouraged to strategically “forget” or “misremember” the names of élite players. For instance, Carmelo Anthony might be rechristened Fudgesicle Roberts. J. R. Smith could be called R. J. Reynolds, or “hobbit guy”; Tim Hardaway, Jr., might become Walter Cronkite, Jr., and Amar’e Stoudemire could be referred to, cryptically, as “little Bobby Basketball.”

Coaches are discouraged from giving speeches or pep talks during halftime. Rather, they should screen DVDs from the “Great Courses” series, followed by a short quiz. At the end of the season, the player with the highest cumulative quiz score will receive a prestigious postdoc in semiotics from Harvard. The player with the lowest score will also receive a postdoc in semiotics, but from the Timberwolves.

When Tex Winter developed the modern triangle offense, at Kansas State, in the early nineteen-fifties, it was intended not as a basketball strategy but, rather, as a geopolitical solution to the Cold War. Only after repeated rejections from the Defense Department did it occur to Winter, in a moment of boozy inspiration, to apply the triangle to the hardwood. If not for this crucial reversal, historians agree, the Cold War would have been peacefully resolved by 1958.

For centuries, mathematicians feuded over whether the triangle offense consisted of two similar but distinct triangles (the double-triangle theory) or a single, repeatedly reconstituted triangle (the single-triangle theory). In 1715, the problem was tackled by no less a personage than Sir Isaac Newton. Newton puzzled over the intricacies of the offense for six months before giving up in despair, on account of his “useless, useless lobster hands.”

During a time-out in the waning seconds of a tie game, when an assistant coach draws up a play on a dry-erase board, he is also required to draw adorable Hello Kitty whiskers on any player who requests them. Again, this does not definitively offer any competitive advantage, but it is considered “cuter.”

Naturally, it takes time for any roster, no matter how intelligent, to internalize the rhythms and movements, the feel and philosophy of the triangle offense. When the day comes—often forty to fifty games into the season—that the very last player on the team seems to at least vaguely kind of understand what’s happening, the coaches are encouraged to throw a small cash-bar celebration in his honor, complete with a d.j., door prizes, and a cake decorated with a smiling cartoon likeness of the player. Then, the next morning, when the player arrives for practice, he should be given a box containing any leftover cake, along with a handwritten card informing him that he has been traded to the Timberwolves. ♦