Tracy McGrady dismisses claims Michael Jordan needed the triangle offense to win: 'He's too cerebral of a basketball player'

Many point to Phil Jackson's hiring and the triangle offense's implementation as the main reasons why Michael Jordan found success and won six NBA championships. After all, the Chicago Bulls were a team that could not get over the Detroit Pistons hump before "Zen Master" and the famed offense.

But suppose you ask former NBA superstar Tracy McGrady. In that case, "T-Mac" thinks that MJ would still have accomplished what he did without the triangle offense. The Orlando Magic legend said that Jordan was so good that sooner or later, he would still have discovered how to win championships even without Jackson and his offensive scheme.

"You had to look back, Doug Collins took this team to the Eastern Conference Finals to face a Bad Boys Pistons team that just won a championship. So you look at Scottie Pippen in his second year, who was still emerging to find himself and who he was as a basketball player," said McGrady.

Scottie did not arrive until 1987

McGrady makes sense, as the Bulls drafted Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant in 1987. Their rookie years marked the first time that the Bulls made it past the first round of the playoffs. During Pip's second year, the Bulls advanced further to the Eastern Conference Finals. Although they were eliminated by the Pistons for the second straight postseason, you could see that there was a progression.

Scottie would not earn his first All-Star Game appearance until his third NBA season. By that time, Phil had already replaced Doug Collins. But given how the legendary forward improved year after year, you can make an argument that he would still have evolved into the player he later became.

"So to say that the Triangle unlocked Pippen's game, I don't believe that at all. I think whatever system they were in, whether it's Doug Collins' system or Triangle system, Michael Jordan's gonna win championships, regardless. He's too cerebral of a basketball player to try to beat the tough Detroit Pistons team by himself. He knows that when these guys collapse on me, I'm gonna find other guys. I'm not gonna take every shot. That's just growth," he added.

He didn't have a 'team' before Pippen and Grant

Many credit the triangle system for making Michael unselfish. Before Phil, MJ was criticized as a ball hog who cared about nothing except putting up points on the scoreboard. But Larry Bird offered a good explanation for that.

"Early on, people were saying Michael didn't have a team mentality," Bird said in Jackie MacMullan's book: "When the Game Was Ours." "That was because he didn't have a team."

The year before Pippen and Grant arrived, Charles Oakley and John Paxson were the only other double-digit scorers on the Bulls. Scottie and Horace's arrival added elite talent and more depth for the Bulls. 

The next season, the Bulls acquired Bill Cartwright and drafted Will Perdue. One campaign later, they picked Stacey King and BJ Armstrong in the Draft. Finally, MJ had a team that could contend, and that's when he started his first three-peat.