Former Head Coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and all-around basketball icon, Phil Jackson has been in the press a lot lately hawking his new book and obliquely looking for work. The timing is sublime but then, Phil Jackson is a very smart man.
Known as the ‘Zen Master’, Jackson is one of the most successful professional basketball coaches in recent NBA history. In fact, percentage wise, Phil Jackson is number one with an overall winning percentage of .705. He comes in fifth for most victories in the NBA with 1,098… but, just perhaps, he’s not through as yet.
Jackson is from the north country. He was born in Montana and went to school in North Dakota. In the 1967 NBA Draft, Jackson went to the New York Knicks in the second round where he played until 1978 when he moved across the Hudson River to play two seasons for the New Jersey Nets before retiring as a player in 1980.
Jackson did make it into the record books with the dubious distention of tying with Bob Dandridge of the Buck’s for the highest number of personal fouls in 1974. After paying his dues as a beginning NBA coach with a couple of lower-level professional leagues, he landed a job with the Chicago Bulls as an assistant coach under Doug Collins in 1987.
Jackson took over as head coach of the Bulls in 1989 and the rest is professional basketball history. It could have had something to do with Jackson becoming acquainted with legendary coach Tex Winter and his ‘triangle offense’ which would become such an integral part of his program in the coming years.
Phil Jackson coached the Bulls for nine years and won six NBA Championship Titles. No one else has done that… before or since. He had a little help from a guy named Michael Jordan on his road to six championships.
When he left Chicago after such an extraordinary run, Jackson announced that he was retiring and vowed never to coach again. He took a year off before running into Jerry Buss and ending up in Los Angeles at the helm of the storied Lakers organization.
In his first full season with the Lakers, Jackson led the talented team to a regular season record of 67-15 and finally ended up beating the Pacers for the NBA Championship that year. He had a couple of guys named Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant helping out on that one. The Lakers went on to win 4 more NBA Championships bringing Phil Jackson’s championship ring total to eleven.
