Phil Jackson. Coach of two of the only three modern basketball dynasties Winner of 13 championship rings. Greatest coach in the history of basketball.
Phil Jackson. Losing his shine?
Over the past nine months, and especially the past one, Jackson has been connected with virtually every NBA opening. Let’s recap.
- Lakers– After Mike Brown was canned back in November, Jackson was approached about the job. It isn’t clear what happened over the weekend, but it ended with Mike D’Antoni ending up with the job instead.
- Nets– Jackson was approached to coach the Nets and had conversations with GM Billy King, but ultimately turned the Nets down.
- Raptors– Jackson is reportedly close friends with new Raptors CEO and president Tim Leiweke and had discussions about becoming the Raptors team president.
- Pistons– While not a candidate, Jackson is “advising” president of basketball operations Joe Dumars in his coaching search.
- Kings– Jackson had conversations with eventual losing bidder Chris Hansen about joining the team in some capacity if he had won and moved the team to Seattle.
Now, I’m not saying Jackson shouldn’t explore all opportunities available to him. But Jackson isn’t some assistant coach that has to take every interview he can get in the quest for that first big job. Jackson can have pretty much NBA job he wants, he just needs to decide what that is. Does he want to coach? Does he want be a president or GM? Is he willing to move far away from his LA/Montana base? Does he want to be in in the long haul and precipitate a turnaround, or does he want to get in, win a championship, and get out?
The cynical side of me wonders how much he really does want to get back into the game, and how much of it is just a promotional vehicle for his recently released book. Promoting the book is what got him onto Twitter, and promoting his book has led to a series of mean-spirited comments.
In said book, there is a section in which Jackson compares Michael Jordan with Kobe Bryant. His comparison includes “gems” such as:
“Michael was more charismatic and gregarious than Kobe,” Jackson writes. “He loved hanging out with his teammates and security guards, playing cards, smoking cigars, and joking around.
“Kobe is different. He was reserved as a teenager, in part because he was younger than the other players and hadn’t developed strong social skills in college. When Kobe first joined the Lakers, he avoided fraternizing with his teammates. But his inclination to keep to himself shifted as he grew older. Increasingly, Kobe put more energy into getting to know the other players, especially when the team was on the road.”
For years the media has tried to get Jackson to compare the two players and he demurred. He finally has compared them—and to be clear I have only read excerpts, not the entire book—and it is shocking how petty it sounds. It sounds like a stupid debate or comparison from two guys at a bar, not the work of the greatest coach in history that saw both of these players up close for many years. A thoughtful in-depth comparison of the two players could be useful, but that’s not what this is.
The latest bit of Phil Jackson mean-spiritedness surfaced yesterday during Jackson’s appearance on a radio show. When talking about his and the Lakers flirtation nine months ago, Jackson referenced being told by GM Mitch Kupchak that the team decided to hire Mike D’Antoni instead: “I laughed. It was humorous to me when Mitch said that we think that Mike is a better coach for this group of guys.” Jackson may well be right that he was a better fit to coach than D’Antoni, but his blind arrogance that he is isn’t a very good look.
Throughout his well publicized May, Jackson has also shown the thoughtfulness that led to the nickname zen master, and that led to him giving his players books that he thought would help improve their mind and their game. After comparing Jordan and Kobe, he wrote on Twitter that people shouldn’t get hung up on words, and that Jordan and Bryant are two of the greatest guards ever. After saying he laughed when the Lakers hired D’Antoni, he went on to explain why the Lakers thought D’Antoni was a better fit, and why he thought they were wrong.
That’s the thoughtfulness I want from Phil Jackson. Jackson is quite certainly the best basketball coach of all time. I’d rather that be his legacy, without him descending into the job chasing, media-whoring, twitter “controversy” pit that consumes the rest of us.