If Phil wasn't a great coach, wouldn't MJ have discovered that with all the time he played for him? MJ demands and expects excellence from everyone around him, including his coach.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">[quote name='Eclipse']Phil is not just "lucky". Neither the Bulls nor the Lakers were even close to winning a championship before Phil became their coach. As I remember, Shaq got swept a couple times out of the playoffs with the Magic and then the Lakers before he had any success at all with Phil. </div> Thats not exactly true, the Bulls were a 50 win type playoff team before Phil even arrived in 89'. And they had already been in numerous playoff situations. Every great team, I dont care who you have on your roster, must go thru their fare share of playoff lumps. And the Bulls took most of their lumps under Doug Collins. The Bulls had lost to the Pistons in 87' in the Eastern Semi. And then again to the Pistons in East Finals 88'. So the Bulls were just one hurdle away from playing the west for the title when Phil came in 89. Granted it was one big hurdle in the bad boy Pistons. But the Bulls always knew that if they could get over that last hurdle the Pistons they could win the title. And thats what Phil provided for them a concept to get over or past the Pistons. And on to the title but the Bulls were close for a while even before Phil got there.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting sunsfan1357:</div><div class="quote_post">Yeah let's ignore the fact that these players WANT to and CHOOSE to play for Phil. There must be a reason for this, no? Rudeezy, yes that team with to the NBA Finals, but what happened soon after that? Larry kept having troubles with Iverson and he ran away, again.</div> So are you implying that Larry Brown is a bad coach? There is a reason he IS in the HOF.
Where does it say he is a bad coach? Reading comprehension does wonders. It is a well-known fact that Larry Brown runs away from his teams. Did it with the Pacers, with the 76ers, the Nuggets, the Clippers, etc.
I didn't really read the rest, but Jackson is not a traditional coach. He doesn't draw up the greatest plays, doesn't think on the fly, but he's great in understanding people and getting what he wants out of them. He's able to take good teams and make them great teams. Before Phil, the Bulls were only good but he turned them into a great team. Same with the Lakers, they had time making it out of the first round with Kobe and Shaq till Phil came along.
It's sad that he only coached elite teams. Now you have to make an excuse and make wild assumptions about if he coached crap teams. The coach is the player who sets the tone for the players. That's why they call time outs. If they didn't call it, then the players would continue to play sluggish right? That's why there's a head coach in the NBA. It starts from the coaches in order to win championships.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting sunsfan1357:</div><div class="quote_post">Where does it say he is a bad coach? Reading comprehension does wonders. It is a well-known fact that Larry Brown runs away from his teams. Did it with the Pacers, with the 76ers, the Nuggets, the Clippers, etc.</div>Thats why I ASKED if you were IMPLYING that he was a bad coach. Reading comprehension does wonders.
...and there was no reason for you to even ask that question, and my response shows that I answered your question (however indirectly I did it) so my reading comprehension is fine...
On one half he had scottie pippen and on the other you have shaq and kobe whats the next team he will coach i thinking its the raptors with Vince Carter and Jalen Rose
errrrr, rose and carter equals shaq and kobe or mike and pipp? raptor's fans are always good for comic relief. red auerbach said it best, jackson has never developed anybody, he goes to teams that are already established. he got lucky once with MJ, got six rings and after that all he had to do was pick which team he wanted to coach. what a coincidence it was the lakers. if he's such a great coach, why does his teams perform so badly when one of the superstars is hurt?
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">[quote name='cubanballer']errrrr, rose and carter equals shaq and kobe or mike and pipp? raptor's fans are always good for comic relief. red auerbach said it best, jackson has never developed anybody, he goes to teams that are already established. he got lucky once with MJ, got six rings and after that all he had to do was pick which team he wanted to coach. what a coincidence it was the lakers. if he's such a great coach, why does his teams perform so badly when one of the superstars is hurt?[/QUOTE]</div> But what about the Bulls last championship season in 97-98, Scottie Pippen missed like half the season with a back injury, yet the bulls won 62 games. Or better yet what about when Jordan retired before the 93-94 season, granted it wasnt an injury but Phil still had to prove that he could open up the floor & incorprate new cocepts into the offense to make for missing MJ. He put more emphasis on the on the role players in the offense. And BJ Armstrong & Horace Grant made their one & only all-star game that year. And the Bulls were on bad call away from making the eastern conference championship. So Phil has proven that he can still coach a team if one of the star players is missing in action, he just hasnt done it in recent years with the Lakers per say, but the Lakers did suffer alot of injuries this year yet they still finished 2nd in the West. I wouldnt call that preforming badly, But they did look bad when shaq went down in the 2002-2003 season.
[quote name='Henacy']<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> But what about the Bulls last championship season in 97-98, Scottie Pippen missed like half the season with a back injury, yet the bulls won 62 games. Or better yet what about when Jordan retired before the 93-94 season, granted it wasnt an injury but Phil still had to prove that he could open up the floor & incorprate new cocepts into the offense to make for missing MJ. He put more emphasis on the on the role players in the offense. And BJ Armstrong & Horace Grant made their one & only all-star game that year. And the Bulls were on bad call away from making the eastern conference championship. So Phil has proven that he can still coach a team if one of the star players is missing in action, he just hasnt done it in recent years with the Lakers per say, but the Lakers did suffer alot of injuries this year yet they still finished 2nd in the West. I wouldnt call that preforming badly, But they did look bad when shaq went down in the 2002-2003 season.</div> you are right on the 97-98 bulls, that was a great team effort (still not sure how much was coaching) as far as the 93-94 season i couldn't tell you much, i was still in Cuba where they don't show nba games. i was thinking more of the lakers, and how when either kobe or shaq are out (especially shaq), they really play crappy basketball. this yera they had injuries, but neither kobe nor shaq were sidelined for a long stretcht. and you can't deny there were games when they just stank. IMO coaches like jerry sloan or popovich or tomjanovich are better than jackson, they adapt game strategies to the skills of the players they have and who are they playing. look at what sloan did with the jazz after losing malone and stockton, they are a different team now. jackson is pretty good at managing egos, if being hands-off can be considered manging, but i don't see him as an x and os type. larry brown is outcoaching him so far (even without fouling shaq on game 2, which was moronic).
i think hes lucky because of the players he got when he was coaching....in BULLS he got jordan and pippen and also rodman fo rebound and Now he got Lakers with Shaq,the most dominant players and Kobe
Phil Jackson always had talent, but not everyone can coach talent. Perfect example: Don Nelson. In my mind there shouldn't be any doubt that Dallas is the most talented team in the league, and yet they managed to win just one damn playoff game.
This alone is testament enough to Phil Jackson's greatness as a coach- arguably two of the top 5 greatest players ever, when they played under Jackson, refused to play for any other coach- Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal. I don't see any of Larry Brown's players straight up refusing to play for any other coach.. why is that? Greatness recognizes greatness...
Lucky. Simply because he's always had the benefit of having some of the best players ever to grace the court. Not to mention, that a lot of his players played better because of those very players and looked better than they really were, including him. For me it's always been a sense of, his players carried the team rather than him, regardless of it being his decision to put who in and out. He's over reliant at times and I feel he hesitates a lot. Can you imagine putting Jordan with the likes of Hubie Brown, Bzedelik, Sloan or Auerbach?
Everyone should read this ESPN article, and what Auerbach said http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2004...rian&id=1819936 <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">"He's done a fantastic job with the teams he had -- either Chicago or Los Angeles," Auerbach said. "All I said is that he never tried it the other way. He's never tried building a team and teaching the fundamentals. I'm not saying he can't do it. Maybe he can. But he never had to. When he's gone in there, they've been ready made for him. It's just a matter of putting his system in there. They don't worry about developing players if they're not good enough.</div>
I heard about this last year on saying whether or not if he was really great or just lucky. Well he was fortunate to have the players he has had on his teams. + he didn't expect to win a championship the first year he got their because of the complications of the triangle. They had got swept by the Spurs the year before I believe and I didn't expect them to win the championship either the first year Phil got their until they got 67 wins that year and were expected to win the championship. Anyways, I think it's a bit of both. I think he's a great coach, but lucky to have great players like that as well. I don't think the Lakers would've won 3 str8 championships with any other coach, Shaq and Jordan had so much respect for him and didn't want to play for anyone else. This is a big reason why I think he also is a great coach.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Moo2K4:</div><div class="quote_post">Accord, I do respect you as a moderator, but, there are some things I just don't get. One of them being how you would rather watch a boring, grind it out series, like the one we just saw with Detroit/Indiana, than watching exciting stuff like the '02 WCF when the Kings and Lakers went at it. In my opinion, that is exciting basketball. Defensive games are plain boring to me. When you can win scoring sub-70, something is wrong. The other thing I don't get is how you consider Phil overrated. Because, look at it this way. How many titles did Michael and Scottie win with the Bulls before Phil came there. Oh yes, that's correct, NONE. How about Kobe, Shaq, and the Lakers. Lets look at it this way, the year before Phil came, they were swept by the Spurs. See, neither of those teams with their repsective superstars could win a title before Phil came. When he comes, the Bulls win 6 in 8 years and the Lakers win 3 straight and go to the Finals 4 times in 5 years and might win it for a 4th time. See, even if you have great players, you can't win without great coaching. Look at the Pistons this year. Now, not taking away anything from Rick Carlisle, he's a good coach and all, but, when Larry Brown comes, look what happens. They win 56 games, and make the NBA Finals for the first time in 14 years and might just win. Same thing with the Lakers when Phil came. They had all the essential elements to win the title, but, they didn't have a coach to lead them. Phil comes, they win 63 games and win the title. Phil Jackson is a great coach. He may inheret great players, but, those players had never won without him. Great coaches make great players better. That's what Phil does. He made Michael and Scottie into championship players and he's done the same with Shaq and Kobe. He is a great coach and I don't think that you can take anything away from him just because of the players he gets.</div> Phil Jackson went to the Bulls and they grew into being the best team in the league. Like Detroit did with Chuck Daly. It was a rite of passage. Bird to Isaiah to Michael. It was supposed to go to Shaq and Penny but Shaq wanted to be in Hollywood and spoiled that. Doug Collins was a good coach for Chicago and had he stuck around,they would have still won with him IMO. Same thing with the Lakers,Shaq was just coming into his own and their first title he dominated both ends of the court. Jackson was an ideal fit for the Lakers due in large part to Shaq. He had credibility to solve the talented Lakers chemistry issues and they blossomed. A good coach,yes. A great one,nope.
To everyone who said that Phil Jackson does a great job of keeping his players' ego's in check, that's not true. Doesn't anyone remember a few months ago where Kobe's teammates criticized him in the press about not passing enough and hogging the ball and then the very next game Kobe did not take one shot at all the entire game until the 4th quarter and he refused to shoot the ball even if he had a wide open look (and he had many of them). Phil Jackson did a real great job of keeping Kobe's ego in check on that night . Anytime something goes wrong for the Lakers, someone from the organization will come out in the press placing the blame on someone else and criticizing other players on the Fakers in the press and the next game there is always some on court vendetta and Phil Jackson does a piss poor job of controlling it. The ego's of his players have cost them to lose games on many occasions this season and without Shaq, the Lakers and Phil Jackson are worthless. The same thing that happened to the Celtics is going to happen to the Lakers. Once Shaq retires in a few years, it doesn't matter who they replace him with, the Lakers will be a mediocre team at best and their situation down the road will be comparable to the current situation of the Celtics. Everyone in here is arguing saying "well why do MJ and Shaq refuse to play for anyone else?" Just because they RESPECT Phil Jackson does not mean he is the best. The Nets are a perfect example of this, Byron Scott is a much better coach than Lawrence Frank, however the players on the Nets did not respect Byron which is why he was fired despite leading them to two straight eastern conference titles. Just because a coach is more respected doesn't mean he's better.
