Someone explain to me how this series 'shows up Phil Jackson as a fraud'

GB, your losin' it, man. Bad taste, uncalled for, and HARD ON THE EYES!

 

First, Kobe has a long way to go before being top 15. He might make it, might not, that is a serious list--he would have to knock out somelike like Duncan, Hayes, Petit, Mo Malone, Barkley, Karl Malone, Baylor, Dr. J, off the top of my head, let alone breaking into a group with Shaq, Robertson, West, Russell, Hakeem, Bird, Magic, Jabbar, MJ, or Wilt.

However, let me go with this premise. You have to start with Red A., who had like 7 hall of famers on the same team. How about whoever had Wilt, West and Baylor at the same time no less with the Lakers. Rudy had Dream, Barkley, Pippen and Clyde--not all top 15 but 2 guys there and another 2 guys in the top 40. Riley had Jabbar and Magic--maybe both top 5 and whom I hedge my bets will always be considered better than Shaq and Kobe, plus Worthy and McAdoo who are HoFamers. PJ isn't the first to have the best player of a decade on his team or a team with two superstars, he is just the first guy since Red to do anything close like winning 8 over 11 years. I guess Riley (who had even more talent IMO though his competition was better) is next with what 5 over 9.

 

Thanks, Desert Scar. Let's not deify Bryant just yet. He should have several years to prove that he deserves that distinction (barring injury, of course).

 

I think Jackson is a fine coach; I'm just poking holes in the mystique. Somehow you have to factor in dilution of the talent league-wide pool into this equation.

Kobe will make that Top Fifteen when his career writes a few more chapters.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but no coach can win championships without stars. Someone said that the teams Phil coached could have won with a monkey as coach, then how come Doug Collins couldn't take the bulls all the way? How come the lakers kept getting swept with Del Harris and Kurt Rambs? A year after Phil came to Chicago, they win a title. The SAME year he comes to LA,they win a title. Before Phil, that lakers team was loaded. They had Shaq, Kobe, Nick van Exel, eddie Jones, elden campbell. But they still couldn't get it done. And just to let ya know, the reason Kobe matured, the reason he began trusting his teammates, the reason he stopped being selfish was because of, thats right you guessed it....Phil. Ditto for MJ's maturation too. If you think coaching is easy, you obviusly don't known much about B-ball. There's more to coaching than just drawing up plays. I think SHaq said it best, " not everyone can coach talent."

 

Btw, Shaq being injured is a bigger impact than Peja being out. Peja is not a great defensive stopper, so the only thing the Kings might be missing is his offense. Well, the Kings have more than enough offensive players - they have the deepest offensive team in the league.

Shaq only getting 20 and 10 is like Allen Iverson only getting 15 points and 1 steal. We all saw the damage a healthy Shaq can do in the playoffs last year. He was a threat to go off for 40 and 20 every single night. As we can see in this series so far, you just can't replace that.

 

West, Baylor, and Chamberlain never won a championship together. I know that they were all on the 1971-72 team together, but Elgin only played 9 games due to a knee injury and was a non-factor in their 69 win season.

I believe that was his last season.

Phil Jackson is a good motivator and decent amateur psychologist.

But as a coach?? Please...as stated by DV, Tex Winter has done most of the actual coaching for Phil Jackson's teams. All Phil has done is sit on the bench and make annoying faces all game long.

I used to put a team together every season in our local city league. I made sure I got guys who had played high school ball and even some college. Our talent level was so far ahead of everyone else, it wasn't funny. All I did was tell them when we played and who started. They did everything else on their own.

The point is that great players win games not coaches, no matter what the level of competition is.

When you have the greatest player in the game, not once but twice on your team, in Jordan and Shaq, what coaching do you really have to do??

Sorry, but until I see the Zen fraud coach a team like the Rockets had last season, one with 2 to 3 good players and a slew of role players, and lead it to the playoffs, maybe even the finals like one Larry Brown, then I'll agree with the media that he is a great coach.

 

<i>The point is that great players win games not coaches, no matter what the level of competition is.</i><p>
Most of us probably agree with this. Further, I would agree (as would Jackson himself) that if you want to get a perennial loser to a .500 record and a first-round playoff exit, Jackson isn't the guy.<p>
But that's the wrong standard; no one said that Willie Shoemaker or Eddie Arcaro were lousy jockeys because they always got the best horses to ride. Rather, <b>they always got the best horses because they were the best riders</b>.

 

So, ktheintz,

Why is Phil such a genius when he has the best players and they do their job and win?

Look at what Larry Brown did at his various stops:

UCLA
Kansas
Denver Nuggets
LA Clippers
Indiana Pacers
San Antonio Spurs
Philadelphia 76ers

Granted, the man is a nomad, but it is absolutely amazing at the teams/programs he turned around.

The man took the freaking Clippers to the playoffs not once but twice!

How long had the 76ers not been to the playoffs? Brown takes them to the finals.

UCLA was down for several years after Wooden retired. Brown takes them to the championship game a couple of years into the job.

The Pacers were a mediocre, fringe playoff team...Brown basically built the team into a perennial playoff team that would make it to the finals 2 seasons ago and gave Jordan's Bulls everything they wanted in his last year in Chicago.

NOW, that's a coach.

You think Jackson has the balls to accept jobs like Larry Brown did?

Let me know when you come up with an answer other than no that has an explanation to it.

 

So you get Larry Brown to build a competitive team and Phil Jackson to finish the job. I guess what your criteria for "being the best coach in the business" determines who you think is better.

Personally, I would guess the highest paid CEO types are the ones that can take a company with strong assets that are not quite functioning to full potential and soon make them streamlined and dominant in an industry. Contrast this with someone who is great at taking a bad company without a lot to work with and getting them profitable (Larry Brown?). Both are rare and impressive I guess, but I don't see how you can fault a coach for taking the talented by dysfuctional team and making them dominant. We don't knock players when they think they are the missing piece to a talented team and go there via FA, or knock CEOs when maybe they think a company may only need little expert tweeking on their part to be great and dominant.

 

*sigh*

gb and desert scar:

I guess I was a little unclear about my Jackson and Brown comparison.

Did Phil re-build the Bulls or the Lakers? No, he waltzed in after Collins and Rambis/Harris.

Yea, you can argue that he straightened those talented teams out, but Larry Bird and Magic Johnson plus possibly Isiah were slightly better than Jordan at the time that Collins was coaching. When Phil took over, Bird was having back problems, Magic had contracted HIV, can't really remember about Isiah other than he got old. Guess what?? It was now clear for Jordan to become the best player in the game. Not only did he not have any competition like he used to have, but he elevated his game. That would have happened regardless of who was his coach

The same thing with Shaq and Kobe...

To me a great coach is someone who takes a team that is lesser talented than the one he goes up against and leads it to victory.

Shaq may be the most physically dominating player of all-time. It really doesn't take a lot of "coaching" to win when you have a player like that. You could argue that if it wasn't for an injured toe (or whatever he has), the Lakers would probably be ahead in this series.

And gb, the CBA does not count in tough jobs that Jackson has taken. I know he turned down the Grizzlies, others have said that he turned down the Clippers and maybe another team.

I don't think that Larry Brown would run away from something like that. Yea, maybe Phil is smart for not taking those jobs, but he shouldn't be praised like he is some God for winning with teams that obviously have the best players in the league. He should be praised for winning with teams that don't have a single player to make the all-NBA team, first, second, or third teams.

I honestly don't think that any of us will ever see Phil coach a team like that. That's the great thing about him...it allows him to keep that "mystique" of his.

 

Red Auberbach and John Wooden must be the luckiest SOBs alive...

-He makes them play defense.

-He makes the other teams change their game plans, during the game.

-His teams are usually prepared and confident enough to think they will win.

-And most of all, everyone knows their role.

That might not be the "greatest" coaching job ever. But championships and winning percentage don't lie.

You could even make a case for Riles being overrated. He destroys any future for his teams by creating a team full of veterans who are at their peak or on a downward slide.

But in any case, no matter what opinion is, basketball is very heavy on who wins and who doesn't. Ask Malone and Stockton about that...

 

gb - agree that we will agree to disagree on this.

Invisible fan - aren't you a Lakers fan?

Yea, great coaching job that Phil has done with Shaq and Kobe the last 2 years.

Once again, I don't think a coach is larger than God, when all of his teams have had the best player in the game on them (some would argue that Shaq and Kobe are the 2 best players in the game) and his assistant came up with his "offense".

But, apparently, other than DV and some who have elected not to speak out, I seem to be in the minority on this.

I would just like to see Phil coach for one season without an all-star on his team & see if he is really as great as the media says he is.

But it will never happen, just like making any headway in this thread..so I'm out on this discussion.

 

Jackson is a decent coach.

He's not the God Of Coaching that many make him out to be.

When he takes a crappy team, makes the right personnel moves, good trades, great drafts, and turns them into a championship contender within a few years without the benefit of the best players in the game being there when he arrives.....well, then I'll consider him one of the greats.

 

Thank you.

Eloquently said and what I have been trying to say all along.

 

All the coach/GMs out there lately have crashed and burned. What you're asking for Rokkit is the next incarnation of Red Auebach or some Jerry West and Larry Brown hybrid...

Yeah, I'm a Lakers fan. I hated Phil and his Jordan days. I hated Jordan too. They were both arrogant and smug and were perfect for each other.

Being a Lakers fan I watched Shaq and Kobe tune out Del Harris. I watched Kobe jacking up the 3 point airballs in a row in a playoff elimination game against the Jazz. I saw them getting destroyed by the stupid pick and roll.

In the regular season, they did just fine... Usually dump it to Shaq. Kobe was a black hole. And most of all, they didn't play defence.

Now Del is a good coach. He won Coach of the Year with a bunch of second tier players in the Lakers. Whatever happened, whether they were too young or they didn't respect Del, they just didn't win.

It's highly debateable what Phil did to the team. All I can judge is with what I can see...

 

Actually, they don't even have to win the championship. Just be a decent contender. Its not that rare. Look at Dallas and Sacramento right now. The Nets and even the Celts.

To take a crappy team and rebuild it into a good one does happen. Like I said, I don't think Jackson is a 'fraud' necessarily....just that he hasn't done enough that I consider worthy of the kind of praise he gets.