Report: Melo ‘chewed out’ Kristaps Porzingis over praise of triangle offense

Kristaps likes the triangle. Melo hates it.

Knicks stars Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis got into it late last season after Porzingis spoke positively of the triangle offense, the New York Post’s Marc Berman reports. 

Anthony has repeatedly voiced his displeasure with Phil Jackson’s preferred offensive system, which the team has used off and on over the past few seasons. When the Knicks began focusing again on the triangle in March, Porzingis was pleased. 

“We’re starting to learn it now the way we should and we should have been playing from the beginning of the season,” he said. “So we’re a little behind. Hopefully, I don’t know when, we can start using it properly and making some impact playing it. I like the triangle. My whole first season, we played nothing but the triangle so I know it pretty well.”

Porzingis’s endorsement of the triangle didn’t sit well with Anthony. 

“Melo really chewed him out, lit into him,” one source told Berman. 

The triangle was a major point of contention for some Knicks players, Melo in particular. Jackson brought in Derek Fisher because he thought his former point guard would be able to introduce the system. When Fisher was fired, reportedly in part because he did not run enough triangle, he was replaced by Kurt Rambis, another triangle acolyte. Rambis was then retained as a member of Jeff Hornacek’s staff and tasked with teaching the triangle.

Anthony won’t have to worry about the triangle next season. Even if he doesn’t leave the Knicks via buyout or trade, Hornacek seems unlikely to continue using the offense his old boss forced him to.