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Before a season got underway, Phil Jackson would ask his squad to line up behind the baseline and be ready for his statement. He would lecture them on exactly what they were in for and reveal his plans. And he would say, “God has ordained me to teach you and coach you about the system of basketball.”
If these words from a man who stood over two metres tall don’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, then maybe the 13 championship rings will.
It was his unique approach to basketball that made Philip Douglas ‘Phil’ Jackson the most successful coach in NBA history. Nicknamed the ‘Zen Master’ for his philosophical approach to coaching and playing the game of basketball, and for employing methods such as yoga and meditation at team practice sessions, Jackson was, quite literally, a man every player and coach looked up to. Coaches respected his intelligence and achievements while players revered him for the father figure he was by the sidelines.
Basketball was his religion
Phil Jackson almost didn’t made it to the NBA. Born to a pastor and an evangelist, his destiny seemed to lie in the church. But churchgoers were deprived of seeing a 6’8” minister delivering sermons as he picked up basketball, a decision that ultimately led to him being drafted by the New York Knicks.
As a player, Jackson didn’t exactly make a lasting impact in the league. He was just a member of the supporting cast when the New York Knicks won two titles in the early ‘70s. But he was a fan favourite, and under the tutelage of William ‘Red’ Holzman, he learned everything there was to being a professional basketball player. He spent 13 years in the NBA before retiring in 1980.
After he made up his mind to get into coaching, he had a few stints in other basketball leagues in the United States and Puerto Rico, before making it big when he was hired as the Chicago Bulls’ assistant coach in 1987. And in 1989, he was made the head coach of the Bulls. And this is where Jackson’s second innings in the NBA began.
Coaching the Invinci-Bulls
With Jackson at the helm and Michael Jordan leading the Bulls, the team redefined domination as they made the playoffs in all of the nine seasons he was in charge. As the NBA gained worldwide popularity in the ‘90s, it was the Bulls that garnered a lot of attention with the likes of Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and Steve Kerr. Even though Jordan’s retirement in 1993 caused a brief hiccup, that didn’t stop them from accomplishing the three-peat twice, which included a record 72-10 regular season run, as the famed Triangle Offense turned the Bulls from a struggling team into the ‘Unbeta-bulls’.
The end of an era at the Bulls as they accomplished a second three-peat in 1998
Success and enemies go hand-in-hand. And with the Bulls putting Chicago on the map, General Manager Jerry Krause’s jealousy over Jackson getting the credit for building a championship team ultimately led to the pair having a fractured relationship towards the end of the Bulls era. It reached a boiling point when Jackson questioned Krause’s loyalty, after which Krause decided he had had enough and did his best to get rid of him.
Jackson had no intention of hanging around in such a climate, and quit after the Chicago Bulls’ second three-peat in 1998. The entire fiasco was too much for him to handle and he swore never to return to coaching again. He had nothing left to prove. He’d won six titles in nine years and was even voted to the list of Top 10 Coaches in NBA History.
But as it turns out, he was only half done.
The greatest (Lake) show on earth
In 1999, he joined the renowned Los Angeles Lakers franchise and he didn’t take long to settle down. After working with the best of talent in the ‘90s, he now had a new star to lead his team in the form of Kobe Bryant, who was heralded as the next big thing after Jordan. With the best centre at the time, Shaquille O’ Neal, also playing in the purple-and-gold, the trio led the Lakers to their first championship since the ‘Showtime’ Lakers in 1988.
But was that enough? Definitely not! The Lakers went on to do a three-peat with their championship wins between 2000 and 2002 – Jackson’s third in his career as a coach. He built a fantastic team around Bryant and O’ Neal with players such as Robert Horry, Glen Rice, Derek Fisher and Rick Fox. Even though Jackson’s calm demeanour was challenged a number of times with on and off-the-court issues with (and between) Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’ Neal, they still managed to put that aside and win titles. But this too reached a point where they couldn’t co-exist, and Jackson eventually left in 2004 after losing in the Finals to the Detroit Pistons.
Phil Jackson’s third three-peat in 2002, this time with the Los Angeles Lakers
Fate had other plans and he was back in the hot seat a year later (after a disastrous season by the Lakers, who missed the playoffs). With Shaquille O’ Neal already traded to the Miami Heat, Jackson brought in Pau Gasol to pair up with Kobe Bryant. The return of the Triangle Offense combined with Kobe Bryant’s scintillating form saw the Lakers go to the NBA Finals three more times, winning twice in 2009 and 2010.
By this time, Jackson was now growing old and health concerns cropped up too, leading him to declare that the 2010-11 season would be his “last stand”. The Lakers only managed to reach the Western Conference semi-finals where they were swept by the eventual champions, the Dallas Mavericks.
A legacy left behind
Although he had a superstar in each of his championship teams, Jackson was a firm believer in unselfish basketball and teamwork. He often quoted Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Law for the Wolves’ – “The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack”. It was that philosophy that made the Triangle Offense such a massive success. Opposing teams had a tough time covering all bases on the floor and even if they did, they had a sixth man in the form of Phil Jackson on the bench to out-think and outmanoeuvre their tactics.
Jackson retired from basketball having won an astonishing 70.4% of the games he took charge of – the highest winning percentage for any coach in the Hall of Fame! He won 11 championships as a coach and two as a player – 13 in total. No other coach in any professional sport in the United States has won even 10!
Phil Jackson’s legacy will always be remembered by basketball fans worldwide as his story is woven into the fabric of NBA history. He was the man who, in a span of two decades, built a dynasty with not just one team, but two. The man who managed to accomplish a ‘three-peat’ thrice! The man who coached two incredible talents in Jordan and Bryant, and transformed them into two of the greatest superstars in the history of basketball.
Phil Jackson was, quite simply put, a man who found peace of mind after he devoted his life to basketball for five decades.
