Phil Jackson

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Phil Jackson
Phil Jackson (center) coaching the Los Angeles Lakers
Position(s): Forward	Jersey #(s): 18, 17
Height: 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m)	Weight: 220 lb (100 kg)
Born: September 17, 1945 (1945-09-17) (age 62) Deer Lodge, Montana
Career information
Year(s): 1967–1980
NBA Draft: 1967 / Round: 2 / Pick: 17th overall
College: North Dakota
Professional teams
New York Knicks (1967-1978) New Jersey Nets (1978-1980)
Career stats
Points	5,428
Rebounds	3,454
Assists	898
Career highlights and awards
1x NBA All-Rookie First Team (1968) 11x NBA Champion (1970, 1973 as player), (1992-1994, 1996-98, 2000-2002 as coach) 1x NBA Coach of the Year (1996) Top 10 Coaches in NBA History (1996)
Coaching
Chicago Bulls (1989–1998) Los Angeles Lakers (1999-2004), (2005–present)
Basketball Hall of Fame

Philip Douglas Jackson (born September 17, 1945 in Deer Lodge, Montana) is a retired American basketball player and current coach of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). 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" (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 the nickname). He also applies Native American spiritual practices as documented in his book "Sacred Hoops".^[1] He is the author of several candid books about his teams and his basketball strategies. Jackson is also a recipient of the state of North Dakota's Roughrider Award.

[edit] Early years

Both of Jackson's parents, Charles and Elisabeth^[2] Jackson, were Assemblies of God ministers. In the churches they served, his father generally preached on Sunday mornings and his mother on Sunday evenings. Eventually, his father would become a ministerial supervisor.^[2] Phil, his two brothers, and his half-sister grew up in an extremely austere environment, in which no movies, dancing, or television (once there was a TV station where they lived) were allowed. He did not see his first movie until he was a senior in high school, and went to a dance for the first time in college.^[3]

Jackson attended high school in Williston, North Dakota where he played varsity basketball and led the team to two state titles. He also played football, was a pitcher in baseball, and threw the discus.^[4] His older brother Chuck speculated years later that the three Jackson sons, including Phil, threw themselves passionately into athletics because it was the only time they were allowed to do what other children were doing.^[5] Phil attracted the attention of several baseball scouts. Their notes found their way to future NBA coach Bill Fitch, who had previously coached baseball, and had been doing some scouting for the Atlanta Braves. Fitch took over as head basketball coach at North Dakota in the spring of 1962, during Jackson's junior year of high school.^[4]

Fitch successfully recruited him to North Dakota after dinner and a movie over a glass of wine,^[6] where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity.^[7] Jackson did well there, helping the Fighting Sioux to third- and fourth-place finishes in the NCAA Division II tournament in his sophomore and junior years (1965 and 1966). Both years, they would be beaten by Southern Illinois.^[8] This was the era in which Jackson's future Knicks teammate Walt Frazier was the Salukis' biggest star, but the two only faced off in 1965, as Frazier was academically ineligible in 1966. In college, Phil majored in Religion, Philosophy, and Psychology.

[edit] NBA playing career

In 1967, Jackson was drafted in the second round by the New York Knicks. While he was a good all-around athlete, with unusually long arms, he was very limited offensively.^[9] He compensated for his offensive limitations with sheer intelligence and hard work, especially on defense,^[10] 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, however, he authored a book entitled "Take It All" which was a photo diary of the Knicks' 1970 Championship run). Soon after the second title, several key starters of the championship teams retired, eventually forcing Jackson into the starting lineup.^[10] He lived in Leonia, New Jersey. After going across the Hudson to the New Jersey Nets in 1978 and playing there for two seasons, he retired from play in 1980.

In the 1974-75 NBA season, the Knicks' Phil Jackson and the Milwaukee Bucks' Bob Dandridge shared the lead for total personal fouls, with 330 each.^[11]

In Williston, North Dakota, where Jackson attended high school, a sports complex is named after him. At the time of its dedication, Jackson, having already won several NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls, donated only a neck tie worn during a game to the Phil Jackson Fieldhouse named in his honor.

Jackson openly opposes the use of his alma mater's Fighting Sioux nickname, which has recently been deemed by the NCAA as "hostile and abusive."

[edit] Coaching

In the following years, he mainly coached in lower-level professional leagues, notably the Continental Basketball Association and Puerto Rico's National Superior Basketball (BSN). 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. Most notably, while still playing for the Knicks in 1975, he had detailed his experimentation with LSD in an early autobiography, Maverick.^[12]

[edit] Chicago Bulls

Jackson was hired as assistant coach for the Bulls in 1987, and promoted to head coach in 1989 where he coached until 1998. It was at this time that he met Tex Winter and became a devotee of Winter's triangle offense, which he had honed coaching the legendary point-guard, Juan "Pachín" Vicens, Best Basketball Player in the World in 1959.^[13][14] Over 9 seasons, Jackson coached the Bulls to 6 championships in impressive fashion, twice winning three straight championships over separate three year periods. The "three-peat" was the first since the Boston Celtics won eight titles in a row from 1959 through 1966.

Jackson and the Bulls made the playoffs every year, and failed to win the title only three times. Jackson lost in his first season in 1990. Michael Jordan's first retirement after the 1993 season marked the end of the first "three-peat", and although Jordan returned just before the 1995 playoffs, it was not enough to prevent a playoff exit to the rising Orlando Magic.

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 at the time, June, were not even told of the wedding, much less invited, only finding out about the event when the wife of assistant Bill Cartwright asked June what she would be wearing to the reception.^[15]
• After contentious negotiations between Jackson and the Bulls in that same period, Jackson was signed for the 1997-98 season only. Krause announced the signing in what Chicago media widely considered to be a mean-spirited manner, emphasizing that Jackson would not be rehired even if the Bulls won the 1997-98 title. That triggered an argument between Jackson and Krause in which Jackson essentially told Krause that he seemed to be rooting for the other side and not the Bulls. At that point, Krause told Jackson, "I don't care if it's 82-and-0 this year, you're f---ing gone."^[16]
• 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)

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 the present.

[edit] Los Angeles Lakers

Jackson took over a talented but troubled 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.

Titles in 2001 and 2002 followed, against the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, adding up to a three-peat. The main serious challenge the Lakers faced was from their conference rival, the Sacramento Kings.

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, continued 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 Final 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. With this win, 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.

On December 12, 2007, after announcing he would return to his position as coach just a few days prior, Phil Jackson inked a 2-year contract extension to continue his tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers through the end of the 2009-2010 season.[1]

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 2007-08 NBA Season, Jackson's regular season record stands at 976-418.

[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".^[17] 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 comparable 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 compression 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).^[18]

[edit] Coaching record

[edit] Books by Phil Jackson

• Take It All! (1970) (with George Kalinsky) ISBN Not known
• Maverick (1975) (with Charley 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] Notes

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Phil Jackson

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Phil Jackson

• Phil Jackson coach profile at NBA.com
• Phil Jackson InsideHoops.com profile
• Phil Jackson Basketball
• The Triangle Offense with Phil Jackson
• Phil Jackson at the Internet Movie Database