As assistant coach: As consultant: Morice Fredrick "Tex" Winter (February 25, 1922 – October 10, 2018) was an American basketball coach and innovator of the triangle offense, an offensive system that became the dominant force in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and resulted in 11 NBA Championships with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s and the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2000s.

He was an assistant to Phil Jackson on nine NBA championship teams with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers.

In 2016, the NBA created the annually presented Tex Winter Assistant Coach Lifetime Impact Award in his honor.

Winter was born on February 25, 1922,[2] near Wellington, Texas, (a fact which later provided him with his nickname when his family moved to California[3]) 15 minutes after twin sister Mona Francis.

[5] The Winter family moved to Lubbock, Texas, in 1929, where his mechanic father died of an infection after being speared by a marlin while fishing, when Tex was nine or ten years old.

[4][5] Winter had to work while in elementary school to help his family, one such job being to collect boxes for a local baker in exchange for day-old bread.

[citation needed] In 1936, Winter and his sister moved to Huntington Park, California with their mother, who would work as a clothing store sales manager.

[5] Both of them entered the United States Navy in early 1943, with Winter going into fighter pilot training and his wife into WAVES.

However, his orders were rescinded after his brother's plane was shot down, and Winter remained at Naval Air Station Glenview in Illinois for the duration of the war.

[citation needed] After the war, he was assigned to NAS Corpus Christi as a test pilot for an experimental jet craft.

[2] After graduating college in 1947, Winter immediately entered the coaching profession as an assistant to Hall-of-Famer Jack Gardner at Kansas State University, a position he held from 1947 to 1951.

[24][18] Winter was named UPI National Coach of the Year in 1958,[18] after he led Kansas State to the Final Four by knocking off Oscar Robertson and second-ranked Cincinnati in an 83–80 double-overtime thriller.

Winter's Wildcats knocked off Texas Western and Wichita State to reach Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri.

[31] Two-time Big Eight selection Willie Murrell averaged 25.3 points per game during the run,[32][33] which ended in a 90–84 loss to eventual national champion UCLA.

The trading of Elvin Hayes to the Baltimore Bullets prior to the 1972–73 season and the Rockets' subsequent subpar performance were factors in his dismissal.

[37][38] In 1985, Winter started another chapter of his life after contemplating retirement, serving as an assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls, and teaching the triangle offense to Michael Jordan.

[17] On his eighth time on the final ballot for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, it was announced on April 2, 2011, that Winter had been elected.