Motivation Quote by Bill Cartwright

“The triangle is a foundation to an offense” reads like a simple X’s-and-O’s line, but Cartwright is really arguing for a philosophy: structure first, ego second. Coming from a veteran center who lived inside Phil Jackson’s triangle system, the intent isn’t to romanticize geometry; it’s to sell buy-in. The triangle offense asks players to surrender the comfort of calling for the ball and instead trust spacing, timing, and read-and-react decisions. Cartwright’s phrasing treats the scheme not as a trick but as infrastructure, the basketball equivalent of good city planning: if the lanes, angles, and distances are right, the people (players) can improvise without chaos.

The subtext is about power and credit. Stars love systems when they win and resent them when they feel constrained. By calling the triangle a “foundation,” Cartwright reframes it as something beneath everyone, including the superstar. Foundations don’t get applause, but without them the building collapses. That’s a quiet defense of the unglamorous roles - screens, post seals, second cuts - that made the Bulls’ dynasty feel inevitable rather than heroic.

Context matters: in late-80s/90s NBA culture, isolation scoring was the easy language of dominance. The triangle’s pitch was that dominance could be engineered collectively. Cartwright, a big man often cast as a supporting piece, is asserting that the real advantage wasn’t just Jordan’s brilliance; it was the repeatable framework that turned talent into a machine.