the best basketball coach

[smazza]

ever

Phil Jackson doesn't duck it, isn't embarrassed by it and frankly, finds it all a little amusing.

He isn't about to apologize for always having the NBA's best player on his roster. Not then, not now, not ever.

He won't be giving back any of his nine championship rings from working the Chicago Bulls' and Los Angeles Lakers' sidelines and, if things go according to plan, won't be turning down the 10th one either, when it snaps his tie with Boston Celtics legend Red Auerbach.

Guess what? Prince Charles wouldn't have good-looking kids if he hadn't been born with all that blue blood. He's not giving them back either.

"I don't know what that has to do with anything as far as basketball goes,'' Jackson said Thursday, about the notion that he has ridden his stars' jerseytails, first Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, then Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

"It's dealing with what you have to deal with in basketball. That's great fortune. It's opportunity. Fortunately for me, in this situation, the opportunities have worked out.''

Some people would love to see what Jackson would do if he were stuck in an expansion mess or, at least, saddled with a lottery roster. Many of those people also wish Brad Pitt had to cope with male pattern baldness, halitosis and steel mill shifts that get in the way of his gym time, yoga classes and spa treatments.

"I probably would have no capability of absorbing a 60-defeat season,'' Jackson admitted. "It would be a foreign-like experience for me. My whole career, even as a player, has been on winning basketball clubs and it just seems to have been part of the makeup of what's been given me, my plate. That's what I've been given and that's what I've had to deal with.

"Some people can make fun of it, have a good time with it or resent it. That's just what it is.''

 

Greatest Coach Ever?  

 

 

 

 

What it is, actually, is getting rather serious. If the Lakers attack this round of playoffs the way their pedigree suggests they should, if they ward off the pestering and grabbing of Detroit's stifling defense (not to mention the clanging and groaning of the Pistons' creaky offense), Jackson will have passed both Auerbach in coaching championships and the Celtics' equally legendary center, Bill Russell, with 12 titles as a coach and player.

Already, he ranks No. 1 in NBA playoff victories (174) and winning percentage (.728), compared to Auerbach's postseason record of 99-69, .589. Pat Riley (155) is the only NBA coach with more than 100 playoff victories, and among those with, say, at least 40 playoff games under their belts, old Minneapolis Lakers coach John Kundla (60-35, .632) and Billy Cunningham (66-39, .629) are the only men within 100 percentage points of Jackson.

Larry Brown, who will be working the other sideline for as long as the 2004 Finals last, still is seeking his first NBA championship. His postseason (post-ABA) record is 81-78, .509.

What we're getting at here is that Jackson doesn't merely rank at or near the top of the list of great NBA head coaches -- he may rank at or near the top of any list of great coaches or managers in professional sports, period.

In other words, if there's a Mount Rushmore somewhere featuring the most decorated and revered bench bosses in basketball, baseball, football and hockey, some latter-day Gutzon Borglum is chiseling feverishly to fashion Auerbach's victory cigar into a soul patch and a Cheshire grin.

 

The Great Coach Debate  

 

 

Power of 10

How many rings does one man need? Phil Jackson aims for his 10th NBA crown when L.A. hosts Detroit tonight in Game 1 of the Finals. Will 10 titles make him the greatest coach ever? Or does that title belong to someone who did it with a little less talent?

• NBA Finals Chat

• Lakers Team Page

• Pistons Team Page

 

 

 

Look, eyes have been blackened in barroom arguments far less debatable, and subjective, than this. This isn't just comparing apples and oranges. This is more like trying to judge and rank the relative merits of apples vs. chain saws vs. Galapagos tortoises vs. a top hat once worn by Millard Filmore.

It's hard enough to come up with the other three faces on the mountain, much less determine whether Jackson's profile should be more prominent than theirs.

Some of the candidates are easy (and big enough not to require first names): Lombardi, Stengel, Mack, Bowman and, yes, Auerbach. Others might not have trophies named after them but could or some day might: Don Shula, Toe Blake, Sparky Anderson, Lenny Wilkens.

Don't discount the moderns, either, beyond Jackson: Tony La Russa. Bill Parcells. Pat Riley. Certain connoisseurs might make compelling cases for the Pistons' Brown or Joe Torre or Mike Keenan or Chuck Noll.

(We'll leave John Wooden, Mike Krzyzewski, Pat Summit, Eddie Robinson, John Gagliardi, Gene Stephenson and the rest of the college crowd out of this discussion. Anyone whose greatness can be torpedoed by the grading irregularities of an English lit professor won't be considered here.)

 

Phil Jackson By the Numbers  

 

 

 

812

Number of coaching victories for Phil Jackson through the 2003-2004 regular season

174

Number of postseason victories for Jackson (NBA record)

15

Number of years Jackson has been a head coach with Bulls and Lakers

9

Number of titles Jackson has won with the Bulls and Lakers

.728

Jackson's postseason winning percentage

.725

Jackson's regular-season winning percentage

Photo: NBAE/Getty Images

 

 

If we're doing the chiseling, we'll go with Vince Lombardi, Scotty Bowman and Joe McCarthy as the other three, mindful all the while that the harshest criticism leveled at Jackson might also apply to them. Star players? They all had star players to coach, from Paul Hornung and Bart Starr to Guy Lafleur, Mario Lemieux and Steve Yzerman to Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig and a guy named Babe Ruth, for cryin' out loud.

Lombardi probably did the most with the least, taking over a Green Bay team that went 1-10-1 in 1958 and transforming them into winners in just one season (7-5 in 1959). From there, he led the Packers to six division titles, five NFL championships and victories in Super Bowls I and II. And no one ever cites Starr, Hornung, Jim Taylor, Max McGee or a handful of other key players as the NFL's best ever at their positions. Most wouldn't crack a top 10.

Auerbach, as cranky as he is with Jackson poised to surpass his rings total, needs to remember that he had great players too. Half his roster, from any given season, wound up in the shrine in Springfield, Mass., with that fellow named Russell anchoring all those Boston championships.

Who's to say that managing egotistical and occasionally selfish stars to a championship isn't as demanding as molding good (but not great) players into a greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts whole? Neither the Bulls nor the Lakers claimed any hardware in the years immediately before Jackson arrived, with essentially the same talent.

As for this season, does anyone really think that navigating Kobe Bryant's legal mess, Shaquille O'Neal's moods, Karl Malone's knee injury and Gary Payton's stubborness against the triangle offense to within spitting distance of the Larry O'Brien trophy simply required Jackson to roll out the ball and fold his arms?

 

Who's the Daddy?  

 

 

Lakers vs. Sopranos

The Laker and Soprano families have some striking similiarities. See Why  

 

 

Still, the perception lives. Brown graciously launched into a defense of Jackson on Thursday, noting that Jackson's teams play the right way and that "it's not always easy to win when you're supposed to win.''

"I admire what he's done,'' the Detroit coach said, "and anybody in this profession that doesn't is silly.''

Before he got rolling, though, even Brown acknowledged the talent issue. "A lot of people have stars,'' he said. "I don't know if a lot of people have the greatest players like he's had.''

That, in case you missed it, was the sound of Phil Jackson shrugging.

[Velcro]

I'll go with Phil too, but he has had the luxury of teams loaded with all-stars.  He gets the job done when he is given the pieces.  I doubt he'd do as well coaching a small market team, but i'll give him the props where it is due.  He obviously is a great coach.

[___ Eats It]

Can't argue with Phil, although like VG says, he's had the cream of the crop to work with.

I'd love to see what he could do with a team like the Magic.

[Velcro]

Magic WITHOUT Shaq that is

[___ Eats It]

That's what I mean.  Tracy McGrady and Drew Gooden.  Let's see how the Zenmaster handles those guys.

My money says they'd be a playoff team, but win no titles.

[smazza]

collins couldn't win  with jordan

del harris couldn't win with kobe and shaq

jackson won with both

jackson has too prove nothing to anyone

red had 8 hofers

[Velcro]

but did Jackson ever win without 2 superstars on his team?  You are comparing Jackson to del harris, well duh, jackson is better.  

Jackson is a great coach, but also the benefit of timing... he got superstars in their prime, rather than first year, superstars-to-be.

He deserves a lot of props for taking the LA job when he did.