NBA
BASKETBALL: FAN EDITORIAL Had
My Phil of Jackson
By NIK GREEN
May 25, 2001
Grand Forks,
B.C.
CANADA
As a die hard
Bulls fan (even now) it has taken me awhile to realize just how full of
hot air Phil Jackson is. While the Bulls were winning championships many
people hailed him as some sort of wizard that was in a coaching echelon
all his own. As time went on I have come to see that this man gets way
too much credit for what little he is actually responsible for.
We all know
that he has a knack for mind games that may have worked with a Dennis Rodman
but is fooling the Worm really some sort of psychological feat? I mean
of all the NBA players to outsmart and manipulate this wasn’t the toughest
pick. He constantly puts down other teams and their members to make himself
look good. His Sacramento comments last week, are a perfect example. These
comments are both childish and uncalled for. I would like to see this man
coach a team that isn’t stacked and see how well he does then. Anybody
and their dog could have coached the Jordan / Pippen-lead Bulls to multiple
championships. This man has just come into lucky situations when Mike,
Scottie, Shaq and Kobe are hitting their primes and really getting control
of their games. And not only that he has always had a duo or even trio
of superstars to make his job even easier. By this I mean, how starved
for talent is your team when your THIRD best player is a Toni Kukoc or
J.R. Rider?
Jackson did
absolutely nothing when Mike left for two years. Had he coached one of
those teams to a championship then yes, maybe we could start referring
to him as Merlin. Phil Jackson reminds me of that mouthy, snot nosed kid
that would do homework for the big guys so he could later mouth off people
and not have to worry about the end result. There are ten other coaches
that deserve as much credit as Phil Jackson and never get any. Rick Adelman
is one of these coaches. GO KINGS!
