Phil Jackson

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Phil Jackson

Position	Forward
Nickname	Zen Master
Height	{{{height}}}
Weight	{{{weight}}}
Nationality	United States
Born	September 17, 1945 Deer Lodge, Montana
College	University of North Dakota
Draft	1970, 1970 New York Knicks
Pro career	1970–1980
Former teams	New York Knicks 1970 – 1980

Philip Douglas "Phil" Jackson (born September 17, 1945 in Deer Lodge, Montana) is the current coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, an American professional basketball team. A former player for the New York Knicks, Jackson is widely considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of the National Basketball Association. His reputation was established as head coach of the Chicago Bulls from 1989 through 1998; during his tenure in Chicago, Jackson led the team to six NBA titles. His reputation was furthered when his next team, the Lakers, won three consectutive NBA titles under his tutelage.

Jackson is known for his use of Tex Winter's triangle offense as well as a holistic approach to coaching that is influenced by Eastern philosophy, earning him the nickname "Zen Master". He also applies Native American spiritual practices as documented in his book "Sacred Hoops" (see also: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sports/jan-june00/jackson_6-16.html). He is the author of several candid books about his teams and his basketball strategies.

Contents 1 New York Knicks 2 Coaching 2.1 Chicago Bulls 2.2 Los Angeles Lakers 3 Motivational techniques 4 Books by Phil Jackson 5 Trivia 6 External links and references

[edit] New York Knicks

Jackson attended high school in Williston, North Dakota where he played varsity basketball and led the team to two state titles. In 1967, Jackson was drafted by the New York Knicks after playing college basketball at North Dakota. He found that the skills that had 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 with sheer intelligence and 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. He retired from play in 1980. .

[edit] 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.

[edit] Chicago Bulls

Jackson was hired as assistant coach for the Bulls in 1987, and promoted to head coach from 1989 to 1998. It was at this time that he met Tex Winter and became a devotee of Winter's triangle offense. Jackson won six championships in 9 seasons, losing only in 1990 (his first season), 1994 (when Michael Jordan temporarily retired from basketball), and 1995.

The chemistry developed between Jackson and the players was one of the best in NBA history. The respect shared between the players and the coach was the key factor in being able to build up a dynasty. While Jordan was already long considered the most dominant player, Jackson was also credited as one of the most important elements in the Bulls' championships and his work earned him league-wide recognition.

Regardless of the success Jackson shared with his team, the tension between Jackson and Bulls general manager Jerry Krause grew. Some believed that Krause felt under recognized for his work in building the Bulls up into a championship team, being jealous of the attention received by Jordan and Jackson. In particular, Krause believed that Jackson was indebted to him because Jackson received his first NBA coaching job from Krause. Some examples of the tension include:

• During the summer of 1997, Krause's stepdaughter got 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 who 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."^{[citation needed]}
• Krause publicly portrayed Jackson as a two-faced character who had very little regard for his assistant coaches, a perception that certain Krause associates in the Bulls organization had sought to spread about Jackson. At the height of the hard feelings in the spring of 1998, one of Krause’s scouts went to press row in Chicago’s United Center to explain to a reporter the insidious nature of Jackson’s ego. (excerpt from the Phil Jackson biography Mindgames)

Krause also complained of Jackson's arrogance and attempts to undermine him.

After the Bulls' final title of the Jordan era in 1998, Jackson left the team vowing never to coach again. However, after taking a year off, he decided to give it another chance with the Los Angeles Lakers from 1999 to 2004 and again from 2005 to present

[edit] Los Angeles 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 during the regular season to top the league. Reaching the conference finals, they dispatched the Portland Trail Blazers in a tough seven-game series and then won the 2000 NBA championship by beating the Indiana Pacers. Some old Bulls players, such as Ron Harper and Horace Grant, rejoined Jackson in Los Angeles and added veteran leadership and support to help the Lakers win championships.

Titles in 2001 and 2002 followed, against the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, adding up to a three-peat. The only serious challenge the Lakers faced was from their conference rivals, the Sacramento Kings. Many NBA observers believed that the Lakers were on the verge of becoming a dynasty.

However, injuries, weak bench play, and full-blown public tension between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal slowed the team down, and they were beaten in the second round of the 2003 NBA Playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs.

Afterward, Jackson clashed frequently with Bryant. While remarkably efficient in Jackson's "triangle offense", Bryant had a personal distaste for Jackson's brand of basketball and subsequently called it "boring." In games, Bryant would often disregard the set offense completely to experiment with his own one-on-one moves, incensing the normally calm Jackson. Bryant managed to test Jackson's patience enough that the "Zen Master" even demanded that Bryant be traded, although Laker management rejected the request.

Prior to the 2003–04 season, the Lakers signed NBA star veterans Karl Malone and Gary Payton, who had been franchise players for the Utah Jazz and the Seattle SuperSonics, respectively, leading to predictions by some 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 beat the defending champion Spurs en route to advancing to the NBA Finals and were heavy favorites to regain the title. 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 Jackson had suffered his first-ever loss in an NBA Finals series, the Lakers announced that Jackson would leave his position as Lakers coach. Many fans attributed Jackson's departure directly to the wishes of Bryant, as Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss reportedly sided with Bryant. Jackson, Bryant and Buss all denied that Bryant had made any explicit demand regarding Jackson. However, O'Neal, upon hearing General Manager Mitch Kupchak's announcement of the team's willingness to trade O'Neal and its intention to keep Bryant, indicated that he felt the franchise was indeed pandering to Bryant's wishes with the departure of Jackson. O'Neal's trade to the Miami Heat was the end of the "Trifecta" that had led the Lakers to three championship titles.

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; at one point, Jackson called Bryant "uncoachable."

Without Jackson and O'Neal the Lakers were forced to become a faster paced team on the court. Though they achieved some success in the first half of the season, injuries to several players including stars Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom forced the team out of contention, going 34-48 in 2004–05 and missing the playoffs for the first time in eleven years. Jackson's successor as coach, Rudy Tomjanovich, resigned midway through the season, citing health issues, immediately leading to speculation that the Lakers might bring Jackson back.

On June 15, 2005, the Lakers rehired Phil Jackson. In what may be seen as his most significant coaching achievement to date, he took a Laker squad that was mediocre, aside from Superstar Kobe Bryant, and led them to a seventh-seed playoff berth. Once again promoting the notion of selfless team play embodied by the triangle offense, the team achieved substantial results, especially in the last month of the season. Jackson also worked seamlessly with Bryant, who had earlier shown his willingness to bring back Jackson to the bench. Bryant's regular-season performance won him the league scoring title and made him a finalist in MVP voting. However, the Lakers faced a tough first-round matchup against the second-seeded Phoenix Suns, who were led by eventual MVP winner Steve Nash. It was the first time that Jackson's team had failed to reach the second round of the playoffs. The Lakers jumped out to a 3-1 lead, but they lost the series as the Suns became the eighth team in NBA history to rally from such a deficit.

Jackson's main tactical contribution, (both with the Bulls and the Lakers), was the modernization of the triangle offense. He is also noted as a gifted handler of difficult players, notably Dennis Rodman and Kwame Brown. Jackson currently makes $10,000,000 a year, making him the highest paid coach in NBA history.

On January 7, 2007, Jackson won his 900th game, currently placing him 9th on the all-time win list for NBA coaches.

Jackson has a total of 10 NBA championship rings: one as a player with the New York Knicks, six as coach of the Bulls, and three as coach of the Lakers. 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. As of the end of the 2005-06 NBA season, Jackson's regular season record stands at 877-353.

[edit] Motivational techniques

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 learned of this, he openly questioned Jackson's motivational techniques saying Jackson had "crossed the line". ^[1] Nevertheless, the Lakers went on to win the series and the championship.

In addition, in the 2001 NBA Finals against the Philadelphia 76ers, Jackson had Tyronn Lue, a player on the Lakers team who was comparitive in size and height to Sixers star Allen Iverson, wear a sock on his arm during Lakers practice to simulate Iverson's use of a compressive arm sleeve as part of his regular gametime attire. Philadelphia media considered this to be a mind game tactic of Jackson's, but the main idea was to simulate what a game against Iverson is like, right down to the tattoos and cornrows (which Lue also had).

^[2]

[edit] Books by Phil Jackson

• Maverick (1975) (with Charles Rosen) ISBN 0-87223-439-8
• Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior (1995) (with Hugh Delehanty) ISBN 0-7868-6206-8, ISBN 0-7868-8200-X
• More than a Game (2001) (with Charley Rosen-- chapters alternate between the two authors) ISBN 1-58322-060-7, ISBN 0-7434-4411-6
• The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul (2004) (with Michael Arkush) ISBN 1-59420-035-1, ISBN 0-14-303587-8

[edit] Trivia

This section does not cite its references or sources. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) This article has been tagged since March 2007.

• Phil Jackson is a recipient of the state of North Dakota's Roughrider Award.
• Jackson is in a long-term relationship with Jeanie Buss, the daughter of Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss.
• Jackson is a fan of the band Grateful Dead
• Jackson cites Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as one of the major guiding forces in his life. His fond admiration for the book is the source of his nickname "The Zen Master."
• Jackson doesn't come out of the locker room until there is a minute or less until tip off. He does this so that he does not use up his good energy.
• On January 7, 2007, Jackson became the fastest to reach 900 career wins, doing so in only 1,264 games and beating Pat Riley's previous record of 900 in 1,278 games.

[edit] External links and references

• Phil Jackson InsideHoops.com profile
• Phil Jackson Basketball Reference Profile
• David Halberstam (2000). Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made. Broadway. ISBN 0-7679-0444-3 (paperback). 

Preceded by Doug Collins	Chicago Bulls head coach 1989–1998	Succeeded by Tim Floyd
Preceded by Kurt Rambis	Los Angeles Lakers head coach 1999–2004	Succeeded by Rudy Tomjanovich
Preceded by Frank Hamblen	Los Angeles Lakers head coach 2005 – present	Incumbent

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