Major sports website SB Nation features Tim Cone

MANILA, Philippines – Sports website giant SB Nation presented on Thursday a lengthy article about basketball’s triangle offense, and acknowledged PBA’s most winningest coach Tim Cone as its “foremost apostle.”

Writers Mike Prada and Doug Eberhardt started their piece “The Triangle’s Holy War” with a five-paragraph feature about Cone and his PBA feat.

“The world's foremost apostle for the Triangle offense does not coach in the NBA. He doesn't coach in college or American high school, either. He doesn't coach in the United States at all,” the article’s lead paragraph read.

“His name is Tim Cone, and he is speaking into a cell phone months after securing his 18th Philippine Basketball Association trophy,” the succeeding paragraph stated.

Prada and Eberhardt disclosed how Cone got enamored with the offense that produced 11 NBA titles.

“Cone's schooling in the way of the triangle began with grainy footage of Phil Jackson's Chicago Bulls during the early 1990s. A young PBA coach then, Cone had an apartment on the bay within antenna distance of both the US Army and Navy bases, allowing him access to NBA broadcasts that other Filipino natives didn't possess,” the writers said.

“While many marveled at Michael Jordan, Cone saw something else: a system that perfectly captured the way he wanted his teams to play. He taped every Bulls game on his trusty Sony Betamax and went over the footage endlessly, learning the various triangle intricacies by osmosis,” they added.

"I went full bore on the offense in 1993, but unfortunately, I was teaching it at the same time I was learning it," Cone was quoted as saying. "It was our worst year ever. But the next year, 1994, was our best year ever. I've been running the triangle ever since."

Prada and Eberhardt wrote about the triangle with the return of Jackson in the NBA as president of the New York Knicks ball club.

The writers wonder why, with its success, the triangle can silence a growing legion of critics.

“As Jackson returns to the NBA to use Derek Fisher and the New York Knicks as vessels to implement the system, he's finding an entirely different climate. The NBA is a league of copycats; plagiarism is the highest compliment one coach can pay another. And yet, the offense that produced 11 NBA titles never caught on like many believe it should have,” they said.

“Why aren't there any Tim Cones in the NBA?” the writers asked.