Why does phil jackson sit

I always say, if the general doesn't panic, the troops won't panic. O'Neal also noted that he was a driving force in getting Jackson to Los Angeles, explaining that he told then-Lakers general manager Jerry West to do whatever it took to hire Jackson. Because I know if we got a guy like that at the head of the table, everybody's gonna follow suit. As you saw, when he first came in we was rolling. He also shared one of the requests Jackson made when he first took the job, and how it impacted his play.

Just do me a favor this year. No rap videos, no commercials, no nothing. If you play like the way I think you can play you gonna be MVP and we're gonna win a championship. And I did it the second year and I did it the third year. So, the fact he had that resume. He knew what he was talking about. The guys really, really believed in him. But with Mike Brown taking over, fans can expect to see more timeouts called when the going gets tough. Given his reputation and the fistfuls of championship rings, Jackson was able to pull this off without much of a hitch.

Because now the opposing coaches, players, referees and team members will be zinging him. With Brown bringing in a new offense, he will now have to give players the playbook on those long, tiring road trips to the East Coast. No more Kipling or Hemingway. Just unabridged Brown. There was one moment in the first half -- endlessly replayed all weekend, simply because it was so foreign to watch -- when Jackson laid into Gasol and pounded him in the chest for effect, the urgency practically spilling out of him.

None of it worked. The Lakers lost. Two days later, after Dallas had blown the doors off and turned Game 4 into a rout, two of Jackson's players basically quit on him. The first was Lamar Odom, who drifted through that series much like he drifts through his crappy reality show, finally deciding to leave for good with a premeditated body block of Dirk Nowitzki. Barea, earned an automatic ejection, then ripped his jersey off while being escorted away. As a Celtics fan, I couldn't have been more delighted to watch the Lakers disintegrate like that.

It was like basketball porn. As a basketball fan? I hated it. That's not how Phil Jackson should have gone out: with him losing his cool, then his players doing the same. Those last two games had nothing in common with his career. Like so many other times, Jackson could see Game 4 coming. Four of his five children had flown into Dallas to dine with him the night before -- a Viking funeral of sorts -- and once I heard about that, I knew that he knew.

Your kids fly in on short notice when something is coming to an end: your life, your career, your health, your marriage, something. Either they sense something is wrong, or you sense it. But you want to be with them, and they want to be with you. When Jackson thinks back to that final series, I bet he thinks about that dinner first: the stories they told, the wine they drank, the food they ate. He will forget what happened in the four games. He will remember the dinner.

Just like I will remember our lunch. We finished our meals and landed on an outdoor bench in downtown El Segundo, talking about basketball and watching cars meander by. We talked about the Knicks and what they meant once upon a time, how there's a connection between the fans, the building and the team that just doesn't exist anywhere else. When I theorized that New York was the logical finishing chapter for his career -- maybe he takes a year off, then returns in the fortieth anniversary of the last Knicks title season , the ultimate full-circle move -- he laughed it off, repeatedly saying, "No, no, when I'm done with this, I'm done.

I wanted to believe him, even if it's too perfect, too symmetrical, too everything. When the Knicks scenario became a national story this week, I thought it was fascinating that Jackson never totally denied it. He might think that Red Holzman's spirit could heal his broken body, that the grind of an NBA season would be easier in New York, that the atmosphere in Madison Square Garden would energize him, that the holy grail of another Knicks title is the only thing left for him.

Or he just might like the fact that people are still talking about him. My take: I don't think Jackson is ever coming back. Nothing can top those Jordan years for him. It's impossible. He already had his holy grail. In El Segundo, our conversation kept circling back to MJ, and really, that's why we ended up having lunch in the first place: Jackson had quoted a Jordan argument from my NBA book in two separate interviews that we need to stop looking for another Michael Jordan, because it's never happening , making me wonder, "Wait, did he read my book?

Was it telling that he thumbed through a page book just to read the Jordan section? You tell me. We talked about their last three years in Chicago together, when Michael's fame trapped him in hotel suites and casinos, surrounded by only a couple of trusted friends.

We talked about Michael playing 36 holes of golf before playoff games, how he stayed up until all hours, how he needed only an hour of sleep and he was fine. We talked about Michael and Scottie as a tandem, how much ground they covered, how well they connected, how they compared to LeBron and Wade, how they loved eviscerating teams on the road more than anything.

We talked about Michael's controversial Hall of Fame speech, which Jackson loved because, as he put it while laughing , "that was Michael," the guy who became the greatest player ever by fueling himself with so many petty slights and grudges. We talked about Michael's steadfast refusal to blow random, meaningless road games in Sacramento, Vancouver, Cleveland or wherever, how those were the nights that made him truly special, when his entire team was dragging, when the NBA schedule demanded a Chicago loss, yet Michael just couldn't allow it.

I never asked Jackson to compare Michael and Kobe simply because the question didn't need to be asked. Jackson made his answer clear over the years, doing his best never to frame it in a way that antagonized Kobe. You know, "There will never be another Michael Jordan," stuff like that. His own career is harder to assess. You can't deny Jackson's timing first Jordan, then Shaq and a young Kobe, then Kobe , and if we learned anything about NBA coaching over the years, it's that you're only as good as your players.

But that belittles what Jackson accomplished, because clearly, eleven titles mean something. He never gets enough credit for successfully handling two of the three most difficult NBA superstars ever: Jordan and Kobe with Wilt being the third. Jordan's ongoing ruthlessness threatened the basic concept of a "team" -- instead of being supportive, he was withering.

He had to win all the time, every time. If he sensed someone might be a weak link, Jordan shattered their confidence rather than building it up. During any times of real struggle on a basketball court, he trusted himself over everyone else and played accordingly.

Jackson tempered his most unlikable qualities while accentuating the good ones, steering him toward a team framework without compromising the ferocity that defined him. His smartest small-picture move was pitting Pippen and Jordan on opposite sides in every scrimmage, which kept both players sharp and ensured their practices were properly competitive; otherwise, Jordan would have gone for a shutout every game.

His smartest big-picture move was his handling of Jordan's baseball sabbatical, when he reminded Michael that he was an artist more than a basketball player, and that, by walking away, he would be depriving millions of a chance to experience that art.

He never tried to change Michael's mind, just reminded him what was at stake. For Jordan, that cemented their relationship and opened the door for Michael's eventual return; he knew Jackson cared about him as something more than a meal ticket. When people dismiss Jackson's credentials with "Anyone could have coached Michael Jordan," they are wrong. Kobe presented a different set of issues, as we've rehashed ad nauseam over the past ten years.

Jackson won five rings with him, but not before walking away in and ripping Kobe to shreds in an astonishingly critical book , then returning a year later and eventually working out a manageable compromise.

Jackson dealt with Kobe the same way parents deal with raising young kids: You know you'll have good days and bad days, so you can't dwell on the bad ones. Only once did Kobe nearly shoot the Lakers out of a title -- Game 7 of the Finals, when Boston's strategy hinged on doubling Kobe, forcing "hero" shots and hoping his ego would compel him to keep shooting which it did -- but in another classic Jackson-era moment, Kobe's teammates Derek Fisher, especially pulled him back into the fold.

Bryant regrouped in the fourth quarter, made better decisions and helped the Lakers win the title.