Phil Jackson: Great or Lucky?

Lucky.

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he has had great opportunities, but at the same time he made the best of his opportunities when other coaches couldnt.

He is great at a rare thing: taking a contender with great players that final step. Does that make him the greatest coach ever? In my opinion there is one glaring mark against him: the 2004 Pistons Championship. Larry Brown was the OVERWHELMING underdog, Jackson and the Lakers had home court and had just knocked off the Spurs, who bumped them out previously. The Lakers were destroyed. If you’re the greatest coach ever, you do NOT lose when you have HCA and superior talent. Brown is obviously superior to Jackson in raw talent. (And hell, poor old Rick Adelman has now taken Jackson’s Lakers to 7 games twice with inferior talent and without HCA.)
And as for luck: besides the two OT games Orlando lost on missed FTs, let us never forget all the buzzer-beaters-by-scrubs that have carried Phil (including the Horry shot that broke Adelman’s Kings’ hearts. Not to mention the officiating…)

So, in sum, he’s a lucky bastard, and he’s not the greatest coach of all time, but he’s up there.

Anything else is just people being jealous and petty. He’s a great coach, one of the best ever.

As his opponent said in the press conference, no coach wins a title in the NBA without good to great players. Jackson has won 50 playoff series. There is only a handful of coaches who have won 50 playoff games.

What makes him great: Mostly his ability of handling big egos, which goes along with many great players. And occasionally coming up with genius plays. Like in game 4, when he didn’t advance the ball after a timeout on the final play but instead had the play start in their own half, confusing Orlando and forcing them to play transition defense which let Lewis and Hedo not knowing where they should start covering Kobe and letting Fisher run free to the three point line, where Jameer had backpedalled too far. Swish. Then a good defensive play, and overtime. SVG would not have come up with this play. Neither would Nate.

His skill is handling top tier talent and getting others to accept responsibilities. It’s not easy having Kobe Shaq or Jordan Pippen. But they played well together. He also gets guys like Horry/Fischer to play their game and do it consistently.

However, I do think he’s had the “stars” line up for him. It always helps to have the current face of the NBA on your team; certainly calls start going his way. Let’s face it No one wants to be the ref that fouls out Kobe, Jordan, or Lebron in a playoff game.

Getting the benefit of the doubt with the refs gives a team swagger and allows them to attack the basket and know that will make something happen. When Kobe drives to the lane one of two things go through a refs mind: 1) Score 2) Didn’t score? Must have been fouled, better blow my whistle and see who was closest. OK maybe not that black and white, but you see my point. When lesser players take it to the hole they may or may not get that charity. Kobe knows he will, so the game is never lost.
  
While Phil is good, he’s had the benefit of swagger that turns his teams from this:

To this:

Jackson is a good coach, this much seems obvious, but I don’t think he is the greatest coach of all time.

He did build an offense that worked well with Jordan/Pippen, but umm… he also had Jordan and Pippen. Jordan is probably the best ever, and Pippen was quite possibly the best player in the NBA at his position during that time period. Winning 6 straight titles (when Jordan was around) is still impressive, but it’s not too shockingly godly.

Next he had a Lakers team that had Shaq. Shaq really have ZERO others centers in the NBA who could compete with him. No Ewing’s, David’s or Hakeem’s in their prime anymore. Looking at Shaq’s numbers in all of those finals is just… silly. Throw one of the best SGs in the NBA on that team, and there you go, 3 titles. This team could have gotten more if Phil could have controlled Kobe somehow.

Then… Shaq leaves and Lakers fall into mediocrity. Last season they were in 7th place IIRC a good way into the season. 7th isn’t bad, but it’s not great either. Then… BOOM! Pau Gasol joins the team at the loss of absolutely nothing. Lakers go from 7th to 1st and make it to the finals. Did this happen because of Phil’s coaching? No, his coaching of a mediocre team got them into a mediocre spot in the standings. Pau Gasol, possibly the most efficient big man in the NBA got them into 1st. Then, the “favored” Lakers got completely owned in the finals by the Celtics. So basically, the one team with talent that rivaled theirs beat them handily.

Now we go to this year. The Lakers did not “win” this series, despite the better talent and much better bench. (LOL at Magic’s bench.) The Magic threw this series by blowing a layup in game 2 and by missing 5/8 FTs in game 4. Jackson helped with neither of these things. Sure, he called a play for Fisher, but he didn’t tell Nelson to back off and let him shoot a 3, when Nelson should have let Fisher drive it. He also didn’t put a voodoo curse on both Hedo and Dwight to make them miss an insane amount of FTs. Frankly, Orlando choked and this isn’t SVGs fault.

I don’t like the guy, his style of coaching, the players he’s won with or the hype behind him. But it’s hard to argue that he’s not great with his list accomplishments.

Or are Kobe and Jordan considered the “best” because of Phil’s tutelage? I understand that those two have ridiculous amounts of inner drive, competitive fire and work ethic but there are lots of players who work hard. When we consider the best two SG ever, both played for Phil.

It goes both ways. Phil has ALWAYS had outstanding players and that really can’t be coincidence.

Such a big deal made of whether Kobe would somehow remain a tier below the Greats if he couldn’t win one without shaq. Does this not apply to a coach where you have one of the top 2-3 players of a generation on each of your title teams? In Jackson’s career, he has coached 5 MVP’s and his players have received almost double the MVP votes of any other coach’s.

but i CANT say he isn’t excellent at what he does, and that’s managing the basketball team.

Jordan was a great player and so was Pippen. Titles without phil=0. Tittles with Phil=6.

Kobe and Shaq hooked up in LA. it resulted in 0 wins. Phil hooked up in LA with Kobe and Shaq. THAT YEAR the Lakers won their championship. In his first year in L.A., the Lakers went 67-15 during the regular season to top the league.

Phil Jackson took two egos and mushed them together long enough for three titles. He left the lakers and then came back to rebuild. The knock on him has been that he’s lucky. He then took the mediocre team with kobe and did just enough to get knocked out in the first round by the suns. Then the lakers aquired Gasol and now Phil had a rebuilt team that has won a championship.

He may not be the X or O guy. He has working for him some pretty good X and O guys though. He manages everyone and he manages egos and he gets them to all fit together long enough to get a championship.

Did he get lucky? Yeah, he got his first gig with teh Bulls and Jordan, but he made his own luck too. he kept the engine oiled and got his vehicle across the finish line when all the other teams stalled out.

If Phil was coaching Lebron, do you think the magic would have beaten Lebron? I personally dont.

That being said, he is a great coach. Probably the best NBA coach of all time. But he has been lucky in that he’s coached 3 of the top NBA players of all time (all with nice sizable egos). They’ve all gotten better under Phil’s tutelage, so you’ve got to give the guy props for that. Hopefully, he won’t be back next year (please God!) Basically big egos=championships! I love how last night he was asked about passing Red Auerbacher, and he was ’I’m going to smoke a cigar for Red, he was a good guy’. You just know he was thinking, ‘I am so much better than Red’ and sadly, he is.