Phil Jackson

Philip Douglas "Phil" Jackson (born September 17, 1945 in Deer Lodge, Montana), is a National Basketball Association (NBA) coach and former player. He is tied with Red Auerbach for coaching a record number of NBA championship titles, with nine.

He is known for both his triangle offense ballplaying scheme as well as an holistic approach to coaching players, influenced by Eastern philosophy, notably Zen. The latter is the source of his sports media nickname: "The Zen Master".

Early life and college

Jackson was raised in a strict Pentecostal home; both of his parents were ministers. Most of his early childhood was spent in Montana; his parents later moved the family to Williston, North Dakota, where he attended high school and was a multi-sport star.

Jackson went on to play basketball for the legendary Bill Fitch at the University of North Dakota. The 6'8" Jackson's wingspan was so prodigous that Fitch would often have him show off to NBA scouts with something called "The Car Trick," in which Jackson would sit in middle of the back seat of a 1950s Buick and open both doors simultaneously!

New York Knicks

In 1967, he was drafted by the Knicks, and found that the skills that served him well at the small-college level were all but useless in the NBA. While he was a good all-around athlete, with unusually long arms, he was limited as a shooter, and did not have great speed. He compensated for his physical limitations by sheer intelligence and extremely hard work, especially on defense, and eventually established himself as a fan favorite and one of the NBA's leading substitutes. He was a top reserve on the Knicks team that won the NBA title in 1973 (Jackson missed being part of New York's 1970 championship season due to spinal fusion surgery). Soon after the second title, several key starters of the championship teams retired, eventually forcing Jackson into the starting lineup, where his limitations were exposed. He retired from play in 1980.

Coaching

In the following years, he mainly coached in lower-level leagues, notably the Continental Basketball Association and the BSN of Puerto Rico. While in the CBA, he won his first coaching championship, leading the Albany Patroons to their first CBA title. He regularly sought an NBA job, but was invariably turned down; during his playing years, he had acquired a reputation for being sympathetic to the counterculture, which may have scared off potential NBA employers.

NBA coaching

Jackson was the head coach of the NBA's Chicago Bulls from 1989 to 1998, and of the Los Angeles Lakers from 1999 to 2004 and again from 2005 to present. Jackson has a total of 10 NBA championship rings: one as a player with the New York Knicks (as noted earlier, he was injured for all of the 1969-70 championship season), six as coach of the Bulls, and three as coach of the Lakers. His nine NBA championships as a head coach ties him with Red Auerbach for the all-time lead in that category. Phil Jackson also holds the best playoff winning percentage of all-time.

The Bulls

He finally earned an NBA job in 1987 as an assistant with the Bulls. It was at this time that Jackson met Tex Winter and became a devotee of the triangle offense. In 1989, Jackson was elevated to the head coaching job, and the rest is history. In his nine years as Bulls coach, he won six championships, losing only in 1990 (his first season), and 1994 and 1995 (when Michael Jordan retired from basketball).

The chemistry between Jackson and his team was untouched and was on a level most coaches could only dream of and never could accomplish. The respect shared between the players and the coach was the key factor to the championships they've achieved, but regardless of the strengths Jackson shared with his team, the tension between Jackson and Bulls general manager Jerry Krause, who had originally hired him, had more of a negative impact than anyone could ever imagine. Some examples of the tension include:

*During the summer of 1997, Krause's stepdaughter married. All of the Bulls assistant coaches and their wives were invited to the wedding, as was Tim Floyd, then the head coach at Iowa State, whom Krause was openly courting as Jackson's successor (and would eventually succeed Jackson). Jackson and his wife were not invited, and Krause did not tell them of the snub; they found out from the wife of assistant Bill Cartwright.
*During contract negotiations for Jackson's final year with the Bulls, when the topic of a potential extension past the 1997?98 season came up, Krause reportedly told Jackson, "I don't care if you go 82-and-0, you're fucking gone."

After the Bulls' final title of the Jordan era in 1998, Jackson left the team vowing never to coach again but after he took a year off he decided to give it another chance with the Lakers.

The Lakers

Jackson took over a talented but underachieving Lakers team, and immediately produced results. In his first year in L.A., the Lakers went 67-15, and won the 2000 NBA championship. Titles in 2001 and 2002 followed, and many NBA observers believed that the Lakers were on the verge of becoming a dynasty. But injuries, weak bench play, and full-blown, public tension between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal slowed the team down, however, and they were beaten in the 2003 NBA Playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs.

Following the 2002?03 season, the Lakers signed Karl Malone and Gary Payton, leading some to predict that the team would finish with the best record in NBA history. But from the first day of training camp, the Lakers were beset by distractions. Bryant's rape trial, public sniping between O'Neal and Bryant, and repeated disputes between Jackson and Bryant all affected the team during the season. Despite these distractions, the Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals, and were heavy favorites. However, they were stunned by the Detroit Pistons, who utterly dominated the series and defeated the Lakers four games to one.

On June 18, 2004, three days after suffering his first ever loss in an NBA finals series, the Lakers announced that Jackson would leave his position as Lakers coach. That fall, Jackson released The Last Season, a book which describes his point of view of the tensions that surrounded the 2003?04 Lakers team. The book was pointedly critical of Kobe Bryant, but as the book was written in the immediate aftermath of that season's disappointing finish, it may not necessarily reflect Jackson's opinions today.

Without Jackson and O'Neal, the Lakers struggled mightily, going 34-48 in 2004?05. Jackson's successor as coach, Rudy Tomjanovich, resigned midway through the season, immediately leading to speculation that the Lakers might bring Jackson back. On June 15, 2005, The Lakers rehired Phil Jackson, after his one year off from coaching and from the NBA. Given their sometimes difficult past, his relationship with Bryant continues be one of the most watched storylines in the NBA. To this point, no major clashes between the two during Jackson's second tenure have come to light.

Jackson's main tactical contribution, both with the Bulls and with the Lakers, was the modernization of the triangle offense. He is also noted as a gifted handler of difficult players, notably Dennis Rodman.

Trivia

*Phil Jackson is a recipient of the state of North Dakota's Roughrider Award.
*Jackson is currently dating Jeannie Buss, the daughter of Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss.
*Jackson is an admitted fan of legendary rock band Phish.
*Kobe Bryant frequently calls him "Master Yoda".

Along with being called the "Zen Master", Jackson is known as the master of mind games. In the Laker film room before the 2000 playoffs, Jackson displayed images of Edward Norton's character from the movie American History X, who has a bald head and a tattoo of a swastika, alternating with photos with Sacramento's white, shaved-headed and tattooed point guard, Jason Williams. Jackson then displayed pictures of Adolf Hitler alternately appearing with Sacramento coach Rick Adelman. When Rick Adelman's learned of this, he openly questioned Jackson's motivational techniques. 1 Nevertheless, the Lakers went on to win the series and the championship.

External links and references


*Phil Jackson InsideHoops.com profile
*BringBackPhil.com Lakers fan site dedicated to bringing the coach back to the Lakers, created by a major Staples Center benefactor.
*Phil Jackson Basketball Reference Profile



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