Yes. I misread Wikipedia’s reference to “the 1994 season.”
In my mind, the difference between a good coach and a great one is the ability to win the finals. A good coach (say, Rick Adelman formerly of the Kings now of the Rockets) will get his team to the playoffs. A great coach will be able to win the finals once in a while. I don’t expect a great coach to win every year, but if you make the playoffs for a few years in a row, a great coach should be able to finish it off at least once in a while.
Taking Adelman as an example, he coached the Sacramento Kings to the playoffs for seven years straight, but whenever they got close to sniffing the championship, the joke was that they were the Ramento Kings and lacked the sack to win. On a team with Webber, Stojakovic, Bibby, and Türkoğlu, they would pass up open look after open look because everybody but Bibby was afraid to take the shot.
Where does this leave Jackson? He’s one of the best. #1 or #2 without doubt in my mind. Auerbach and Jackson both had great lineups. Auerbach built a team that was dominant for years. Jackson took teams that couldn’t get over that last hurdle to win a final and turned them into champions. When the Lakers announced Jackson would take over as coach in 1999, I thought it was another attempt by the Lakers to buy a championship that wouldn’t pay off. I was very wrong. He got them over the hurdle and ran off three championships in a row. He isn’t perfect (see game six of last year’s Finals for exhibit 1), but the lapses are generally contained to a single game and not a whole series like the Ramento Kings.
One thing I don’t think Jackson is good at is drawing up single plays. He has a good system for generating offense (two plays: triangle or isolation for Kobe), and he can get the most of his roster, but I think half the other established coaches can out X and O against him. It’s a good thing his system is so damn good.
That’s interesting because you seem to give Jackson the credit, only to snatch it back at the end. May I ask why, with all those caveats, did you still decide to put Jackson behind Auerbach?
To me the distinction seems to be that Auerbach built his teams and Jackson sort of just waltzed into them. That doesnt diminish Red as a coach, but it simply proved that he was a great GM too (although there weren’t as many teams back in those days and no free agency hurts his credibility a little). A great GM doesnt automatically mean he gets a few points as coach. Red never had to adapt, which is what I think great coaches do. He just got some of the greatest players together and rang off a string of championships. Compared that to Phil, who had to adjust to MJ, 2 different rosters, a couple years without MJ, then a very different team in Shaq-Kobe, and then one more time with just Kobe. AND he won more than Red. I think that cements his status as #1
No, I meant to say the Lakers, although I suppose you could make the same argument about the Bulls too.
Jackson did not coach the Lakers during the 04-05 season.
True. But that’s kinda my point. While you still need to be talented to coach and win with the most gifted team, winning alone doesn’t dramatically differentiate you from other great coaches who have demonstrated the same ability.
How would that have changed had Kobe Bryant been called for the offensive foul against Mike Bibby in the 2002 Western Conference Finals in the last minute of game 6, when he elbowed the King point guard squarely in the nose? If that foul gets called, like it should have, the Kings win the series, and do it on the road against the 2 time defending champs. See play here (note - if I could have found the play without the shmaltzy edit, I would have posted that instead).
That 2002 Kings team was a great, great team that got ROBBED of a chance to play for the championship. Apologists looooove to say that the Kings still had a chance to win the series at home in game 7, or, an even more infuriating meme, that it’s ancient history and that whiny Kings fans should get over it (for disclosure I am a Nets fan). Yes there was another game left to be played and the Kings failed to capitalize on the opportunity, but the plain truth is that there should never have been a game 7. Being forced to have 6 foot 9 Lawrence Funderburke try to guard Shaq because of the ridiculous phantom calls on Vlade and Pollard is really what sealed their fate.
Great point, though his teams have had some memorable successful late game plays (which semmed more often than not to involve Mr. Jumpman improvising), and one not so successful one (Sottie Pippen/Toni Kucoc fiasco).
Kukoc made the shot.
:smack::smack::smack:
This is simply not true. At the time, both teams were expected to win championships sooner rather than later. Both teams were playoff contenders that had lost to the eventual champions, or the conference finalists. The two years prior to Jackson arriving in Chicago, and the year after he did, the Bulls lost in the playoffs to Detroit. Guess who was in the finals each of those years? Guess who won the championship in two of those years?
The team that won 67 games that year won 61 (without Jackson) in the last full-length season prior to that. That 67 was an anomaly, seeing as they hadn’t come close to that number until this year. More importantly, they also failed to reach the 61 wins they reached the year prior to Jackson arriving as well.
Furthermore, in the few years before Jackson arrived, the Lakers went to the conference semi-finals (96-97), the conference finals (97-98), and the conference semi-finals (98-99). They lost to the Jazz, the Jazz, and the Spurs, respectively. Each of those teams were conference champions, and in the case of the Spurs, league champions. The Lakers were clearly on the cusp of winning a championship. Phil Jackson knew that when he took the job.
Of course he was the beneficiary of special talent and luck. Can you name any coach who has had more talent on his teams in the modern era? No coach has had the opportunity to coach such great players in the primes of their careers, period. While Jackson should receive credit for winning, I think people greatly overestimate his contribution. Jackson seems to me like a coach who is great to have if you already have a great team trying to get over the hump, but he won’t do dick for a team without overwhelming talent. I guess it up to each individual to decide whether that makes one a great coach or not.
I mean, you can tell me it’s a stupid point, but you can’t just say it isn’t true. The same talent Jackson won championships with was there before he got there, and didn’t win. Then he won with it. They were both “expected to win sooner than later?” Well, OK. They did win. With him coaching, and not before.
I’m familiar with the history. The Lakers kept getting swept, and coming nowhere near a championship. Then Phil Jackson became the coach.
I can name coaches who had the exact same players he had, and didn’t win.
Jackson, I thought, was completely out-coached by Larry Brown in '04 and Doc Rivers (!) in last year’s Finals. Boston was a better team, but I’m not so sure Detroit was.
I can put Phil under the microscope because I watch the Lakes most of the time, so maybe I’m a bit overly critical, but from an X’s and O’s standpoint he’s average at best (PLEASE come up with a better end-of-quarter scheme that letting Kobe go one-on-five) and his substitution patterns have often been head-scratchers IMHO. I would take Pat Riley over him any day. And Chuck Daly. And Greg Popovich, all of whom would have won at least 10 titles with Phil’s talent. Can’t speak for Red because I never saw him coach (Red’s greater strength I gather was as a GM, although I hear he was a great tactician manipulating – paying off? – referees) or Red Holtzman. I don’t think Phil would have done the job with New York that Riles did and I don’t think Phil and the Bulls would have beaten the Lakers in '91 if Mike Dunleavy wasn’t on the other side of the floor.
I don’t think Phil is the great motivator – or Lamar Odom would be a perennial All Star – but he is great at dealing with superstar egos in relation to the rest of the team. And he’s good at putting said rest of team players in their proper roles (as someone alluded to earlier). Basically, they all drink his Kool-Aid over long stretches and that counts for a lot.
Here’s what clinches it for me:
Under Jackson, everytime the Lakers got knocked out of the playoffs, it was not because they were outplayed or outmatched - they were outcoached.
Who developed the triangle offense? It wasn’t Phil so clearly he’s not the X’s and O’s guy.
And if Phil was such a zen master, how come he couldn’t get Shaq (also highly overrated) to stop shoving blueberry muffins down his throat and actual play up to his potential?
If Phil was such a great coach, how come he let his team refuse to play? I’ve seen the Lakers and do you know why Kobe shoots so much? No one else on the team wanted to.
If Phil Jackson weren’t banging the owner’s daughter, d’ya think he would have been allowed so many chances at underachieving?
How 'bout those 4 times they didn’t get knocked out of the playoffs?
Give me 2 of the most dominant 5 players in he game and I could win 4 playoffs in a decade of trying.
OK, the first one’s Kobe, but is the second one Luke Walton or Jordan Farmar?
There’s no smart way to rank coaches in any sport. Really, how can anyone judge whether Bill Walsh was a better coach than Bill Belichick, or whether Vince Lombardi was a better coach than Chuck Noll?
So, I’m not prepared to say that Phil Jackson is the best coach ever. BUT… he definitely belongs in the discussion. He’s more than just a lucky stiff who happened to be handed a roster with an all-time great or two on it.
Lest we forget, Doug Collins had Michael Jordan, and couldn’t win anything with him. Del Harris had Shaq and Kobe, but didn’t win any rings. Phil Jackson was able to get superstars with big egos to buy into his system, do things his way, and voila! They won!
Getting stars to trust you and do things your way is a HUGE part of coaching. Phil Jackson is superb at that. For that reason alone, he definitely belongs in the conversation when we’re discussing the best coaches ever, and ought to be on anyone’s short list.
Should be interesting to see if Phil returns next year…