Beyond Phil Jackson's calm, humble,
confident -yet focused exterior, so to
speak, lies a supreme coaching wizard.
Yet despite his outstanding record of
achievements, there are some who
still doubt his excellence as an NBA head
coach. And why? is there any reason
to deny Phil Jackson his well-deserved
spotlight? -no.
Jackson has a career coaching record
of 612-208, and boasts a remarkable
winning percentage of .746 which
is far superior to any other coach. His
postsesaon winning percentage of
.720 tops it's category, and stems from a
playoff record of 126-49. All this
has resulted in a total of 7 NBA
championship titles. Pat Riley,
Lenny Wilkens, Rudy Tomjanovich, Larry
Brown, among others, are great coaches.
However, none of them have the same
level of achievements as Jackson.
Facts and figures speak for themselves;
and judging by the ones i mentioned
earlier, it doesn't take a
rocket-scientist to figure out that
a coach of Jackson's caliber -with such
an array of accomplishments, is
indeed the best in the business.
As the team's 9-year head coach,
Jackson guided the legendary Chicago Bulls
of the '90s to 6 well-deserved championship
titles -3 of them in the period
of 1990-1993, and the other 3 in
the period of 1995-1998. Two separate
"three-peats" -something that has
never been achieved in NBA history. In the
95/96 season, under Jackson's guidance,
the Bulls rolled to a magnificent
72-10 regular season record (the
best in NBA history). The folowing season
of 96/97, they continued to dominate.
This time matching the 2nd-best record
in league history: 69-13. In his
first year as head coach of the 99/00 Los
angeles Lakers, Jackson once again
applied his coaching wizardry to
perfection; guiding the team to
a regular season record of 67-15(the best
record in the 99/00 season)and it's
first ever title in more than a decade.
At the same time, registering his
7th NBA title.
However, Jackson's greatness has
been criticised time and time again. Some
people still doubt his greatness
as an NBA coach because apparently, he's
had an 'unfair' advantage of working
with highly talented stars -when did
that become a crime?! The situation
is simple; before Jackson united with
Jordan and Pippen, none of them
were AS successful as we have known them to
be in recent years. At the time,
Jordan was scoring in heaps for the Bulls
under Doug Collins. However, despite
his scoring output, the team wasn't
great. It suffered several knock-outs
in the playoffs. When Jackson took
over as head coach, everything changed.
The Bulls dominated from there on,
and Jordan became a megastar.
Before Jackson started coaching in
LA, there was no doubt that the Lakers
had enough talent in Shaq and Kobe
to succeed. But did they
really?.......for one (at least
in my opinion) there wasn't any team
chemistry, Kobe and Shaq were battling
over shots, and overall, the team
lacked a sense of direction. That
obviously resulted in numerous playoff
disappointments. When Jackson was
brought in as head coach in June (last
year), he turned the team around
and guided it to an NBA title.
Jordan, Pippen, Shaq, and Kobe all
played for different coaches before
Jackson. Were they champions then?
-no; did they have much success under
their former coaches? -not really;
were they as dominant under their former
coaches as they were with Jackson?
-no; is it just a coincidence that under
Jackson's guidance they played their
best ball? -definetely not. There's no
doubting that they(MJ, Pippen, Shaq,
Kobe) were all good players. But under
Jackson's wing, they blossomed into
GREAT players.
The point i'm trying to make is that
Phil Jackson brings out the best in his
players -that's why he stands out
above the rest. He presents his players
with a system that somehow maximises
their many talents. Under Jackson,
Jordan went from a pure scoring
stud, to a complete team player with
strengths in every aspect of his
game on both ends of the floor. The result?
-he became the megastar most of
us refer to as the greatest basketball
player ever. Pippen? well, he evolved
into arguably the best small forward
of the 90's . A versatile defensive-stopper
who could handle the ball,
score, drive, dish, and rebound.
As for Shaq, he went from an injury-plagued
behemoth, to the most dominant and
arguably the best player in the NBA
today. Kobe? he's no longer the
one-dimentional, highlight-reel player he
was. Under Jackson's guidance, he
has become a much more mature, less
erratic player, who now plays a
major role in running an offense that takes
full advantage of his (and Shaq's)
abilities; maximising their talents for
the benefit of the team. In result,
Kobe has become one of the best shooting
guards in the league, and has developed
an all-round game with strengths on
both ends of the court.
Phil Jackson's ability to bring out
the best in his star players is what
makes him a great coach. When his
career is all wrapped up, he'll go down as
one of the greatest coaches in NBA
basketball (if not THE greatest). For now
though, he's the league's best coach.
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