Phil Jackon Inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame
Posted by: Dave on Sep 07, 2007 - 08:35 PM
laker_news
|
 Congratulations to Lakers Coach Phil Jackson for all his phenomenal achievments thus far and making it into the Hall of Fame! Here's an excerpt from a nice NBA.com article on the induction:
---
The journey to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and basketball immortality didn't begin with the Albany Patroons or even the Chicago Bulls for Phil Jackson. It actually began some 38 years ago as a player with the New York Knicks.
"The pivotal moment in my life was when I was injured, a career type of ending injury with a spinal fusion, necessary for recovery," said Jackson this morning at the Hall of Fame press conference. "I missed the championship season in '69-70, which was the first championship the Knicks had won. During that period of time, Red took me under his wing, he didn't have an assistant coach, he made me his assistant coach and taught the game to me and taught me a lot about the game and encouraged me to go into coaching."
The phenomenal success Jackson has enjoyed coaching at the NBA level – nine championships, the fastest to reach 900 victories among the many highlights --- was no doubt aided by the brilliant play of future Hall of Fame players Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, an innovative offensive system (the triangle offense) but ultimately a lot of credit goes to his steadfast belief in the total team concept.
"I never consider myself to be an X and Os guy as far as a basketball guy," said Jackson. "Tex Winter, my assistant coach and colleague for the last 20 years, really loved the details and execution of basketball and would sit with me and we would do film sessions and we would do planning together. But the reality is basketball is based on chemistry, guys who want to play together, want to share the work together, want to sacrifice for each other and learn how to do that. I recognized that at early age and that was really a part of what I was participating in when I was a New York Knickerbocker player and that's what I took away from that experience."
Jackson's unique ability to handle players, create a positive environment and maximize performance was no doubt inspired by his former coach.
"He always believed in what was called the middle path," said Jackson of Holzman. "I appreciated that, his ability to handle players, particularly a team that was full of college players of the year. Cazzie Russell and Bill Bradley were both competing for the same job, but the ability for both of them to play as a team directly reflected [Holzman's] ability to handle people and make them play as a group.
"That ability to handle people probably was the trademark that I learned more than anything else. He treated the superstars and role players very much in the same manner."
Before Jackson coached his first game of his inaugural season with the Bulls in '89-90, he sat down with Jordan and informed him that the team was going back to a system of basketball instead of individual sets. Jordan called it an equal opportunity offense but Jackson assured him his teammates would know how to get him the ball at the right time. Even though the Bulls started 0-3 that season, Jackson didn't waver and neither did Jordan. The rest is NBA history.
"Phil really tried to get us all on the same page, get our minds working together," said Pippen, who played nine seasons under Jackson. "He would gather us into a room and ask that everyone be quiet and just try to pull us in. Another time we had a yoga instructor who would sort of lead us through some of the mindfulness of studying about yoga and how it's good for the brain, the relaxation of it and things that you can hear, that you can get into this moment before you are able to hear these things. It was just a way of us really aligning ourselves to come together and be at peace and get our minds and everything working together as one. We always used that technique as part of calming ourselves down."
Read the entire story.
|
|
| |
|
