Phil Jackson

• 1. Introduction

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  Phil Jackson holds eleven NBA championships as a head coach, a record no other coach in league history has matched. Born on the 17th of September, 1945, in Deer Lodge, Montana, he grew up in a household where dancing and television were forbidden, raised by two Assemblies of God ministers. He attended his first movie as a high school senior and went to a dance for the first time in college. Yet this same man would one day earn the nickname "Zen Master" for blending Eastern philosophy, Native American spiritual practice, and basketball strategy into something unlike anything the sport had seen before.

  How does a boy who assumed he would become a minister end up transforming two of the most celebrated dynasties in NBA history? What made Jackson's approach so durable that it survived across different cities, different rosters, and different generations of superstars? And what happened when the philosophy finally met its limits?

• 2. A Minister's Son

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  Jackson's parents, Charles and Elisabeth Funk Jackson, divided the pulpit between them. Charles generally preached Sunday mornings; Elisabeth took Sunday evenings. Elisabeth came from a long line of German Mennonites before converting to the Assemblies of God. Eventually Charles became a ministerial supervisor, and the family settled into a remote corner of Montana where the rules were strict. No dancing. No television. Phil, his two brothers, and his half-sister grew up with those boundaries drawn tight.

  His brother Chuck speculated years later that the three Jackson sons threw themselves into athletics because it was the one arena where they were allowed to do what other children did. At Williston High School in North Dakota, Jackson led the basketball team to a state title. He also played football, pitched on the baseball team, and threw the discus. The high school now has a sports complex named after him.

  Baseball scouts noticed him, and those scouting notes eventually reached a man named Bill Fitch, who had been scouting for the Milwaukee Braves before taking over as head basketball coach at the University of North Dakota in the spring of 1962, during Jackson's junior year of high school. That connection would define the next chapter of Jackson's life.

• 3. Player and Philosopher

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  Bill Fitch recruited Jackson to the University of North Dakota, where he joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and helped the Fighting Sioux to third- and fourth-place finishes in the NCAA Division II tournament in 1965 and 1966. Both times, they were beaten by the Southern Illinois Salukis, whose biggest star was Walt Frazier. Frazier would later become Jackson's teammate on the New York Knicks, though the two only faced off once in college, in 1965, because Frazier was academically ineligible the following year.

  The New York Knicks selected Jackson in the second round of the 1967 NBA draft. He was a good all-around athlete with unusually long arms, but limited offensively. He compensated with intelligence and defensive effort, eventually becoming a fan favorite and one of the league's leading substitutes. Spinal fusion surgery kept him off the floor during the Knicks' 1969-70 championship season, though he responded by writing a book called Take It All, a photo diary of that championship run.

  Jackson played thirteen seasons in total, finishing with two seasons for the New Jersey Nets before retiring after the 1979-80 campaign. During those years, he acquired a reputation for sympathy toward the counterculture, which may have made potential NBA employers wary of him when he later sought coaching jobs. He also developed an interest in Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which he would later cite as one of the major guiding forces in his life. His book Sacred Hoops would document the Native American spiritual practices he wove into his coaching philosophy.

• 4. From Albany to Chicago

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  After retiring as a player, Jackson moved to his summer home near Glacier National Park in Montana. He was lined up to lead the basketball program at Flathead Valley Community College, but the program was dissolved for lack of funds. On the 26th of January, 1983, he was appointed head coach of the Albany Patroons in the Continental Basketball Association, replacing Dean Meminger, who had been his former Knicks teammate. Jackson chose the CBA over college basketball deliberately, viewing it as better preparation for coaching in the NBA.

  He won his first coaching championship with the Patroons in 1984 and was named CBA Coach of the Year in 1985. He also coached in Puerto Rico during this period, working with the Piratas de Quebradillas and the Gallitos de Isabela. He kept seeking NBA jobs and kept getting turned down.

  The door finally opened on the 10th of October, 1987, when the Chicago Bulls hired him as an assistant under Doug Collins. Two years later, Collins was fired and Jackson took over as head coach. It was around this time that he met Tex Winter and became a serious student of Winter's triangle offense, an approach built on spacing, ball movement, and collective decision-making. That system, paired with the talent already assembled in Chicago, would produce results that had no precedent in modern NBA history.

• 5. Six Rings in Chicago

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  Michael Jordan was already a transcendent player when Jackson took over, but the Chicago Bulls kept losing to the Detroit Pistons in the playoffs. The Pistons ran what was known as the "Jordan Rules," a physical defensive scheme designed to punish Jordan whenever he drove to the basket. Jackson's response was to convince Jordan to commit to Winter's triangle offense, trusting his teammates instead of bearing the entire burden himself. In the 1991 conference finals, the Bulls swept the Pistons and went on to beat the Los Angeles Lakers for the championship.

  Two more titles followed, against the Portland Trail Blazers in 1992 and the Phoenix Suns in 1993. That three-peat was the first since the Boston Celtics won eight consecutive championships from 1959 through 1966. Jordan's retirement after the 1992-93 season interrupted the run, and without Jordan the Bulls were eliminated by the Orlando Magic in the 1995 conference semifinals.

  For the 1995-96 season, the roster was rebuilt around Jordan and Scottie Pippen, with the controversial addition of Dennis Rodman. The Bulls went 72-10 in the regular season, swept Orlando in the Eastern Conference Finals, and won the title over the Seattle SuperSonics in six games. Fifth and sixth titles came against the Utah Jazz in 1997 and 1998, though the 1997-98 roster was aging and dealing with injuries to Pippen and Steve Kerr.

  Behind the scenes, tension between Jackson and general manager Jerry Krause had been building for years. Krause reportedly felt under-recognized. Jackson was not invited to the wedding of Krause's stepdaughter, even though all of the Bulls' assistant coaches were, as was Tim Floyd, then head coach at Iowa State and Jackson's eventual successor with the Bulls. After the sixth championship in 1998, Jackson left the team, saying at the time that he did not want to coach a rebuilding squad.

• 6. Three More with the Lakers

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  Jackson took a year off, then agreed in 1999 to coach the Los Angeles Lakers, inheriting a team built around Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. In his first regular season in Los Angeles, the Lakers went 67-15. They eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers in a seven-game conference finals series and won the 2000 NBA championship by beating the Indiana Pacers, coached that year by Larry Bird, who stepped down after the series.

  With a supporting cast that included Glen Rice, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox, Devean George, A.C. Green, Robert Horry, and Brian Shaw, along with former Bulls players Horace Grant, Ron Harper, and John Salley, Jackson won the title again in 2001 over the Philadelphia 76ers and in 2002 over the New Jersey Nets. That third consecutive championship completed what Jackson himself had now done twice: a three-peat.

  The friction between Bryant and O'Neal complicated everything that came after. Bryant reportedly found the triangle offense "boring" and would abandon the set plays to run isolation sets, testing Jackson's famously calm demeanor to the point that Jackson reportedly requested the Lakers trade Bryant, a request management declined. The Lakers signed Karl Malone and Gary Payton before the 2003-04 season, and despite heavy expectations, the team was beaten by the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals four games to one. It was the first time in ten Finals appearances that Jackson had lost.

  Three days after that loss, on the 18th of June, 2004, the Lakers announced Jackson would not return. He had been seeking to double his salary from $6 million to $12 million on his expiring contract. O'Neal was subsequently traded to the Miami Heat, ending what Jackson called the "Trifecta." Jackson released a book that fall, The Last Season, which was pointedly critical of Bryant.

• 7. Return, Retirement, and the Knicks

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  On the 15th of June, 2005, the Lakers rehired Jackson. Bryant had himself pushed for Jackson's return, and the two worked seamlessly together. Bryant won the league scoring title that season. On the 7th of January, 2007, Jackson recorded his 900th career coaching win, reaching that milestone in only 1,264 games and breaking the previous record held by Pat Riley, who had needed 1,278 games. Jackson also signed a two-year contract extension on the 12th of December, 2007.

  A trade brought Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies during the 2007-08 season, and the Lakers returned to the NBA Finals, where the Boston Celtics won the series 4-2, including a 39-point defeat in Game 6 that was the worst playoff loss of Jackson's career. On the 25th of December, 2008, Jackson became the sixth coach to win 1,000 games, surpassing Riley's pace by eleven games. The 2009 title over the Orlando Magic gave Jackson his 10th championship as head coach, surpassing the record he had shared with Red Auerbach. A 2010 title over the Celtics was his 11th.

  Jackson described the 2010-11 season as "his last stand." He retired after the Lakers were swept in the conference semifinals by the Dallas Mavericks, the team that went on to win the championship that year. In his final news conference, he said he did not anticipate Lakers management would call him after he left.

  In 2014, Jackson signed a five-year, $60 million contract to become president of the New York Knicks, the franchise where his playing career had begun. His tenure was difficult. The Knicks finished 17-65 in his second season, a franchise-worst record. He drafted Kristaps Porziņģis with the fourth overall pick in 2015, and Porziņģis made the NBA All-Rookie First Team for the 2016 season. But public disputes with Porziņģis and attempts to buy out Carmelo Anthony eroded Jackson's standing, and on the 28th of June, 2017, the Knicks announced a mutual parting. He was replaced by Steve Mills, who had previously worked under him.

• 8. The Zen Master's Numbers

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  Jackson won the 1996 NBA Coach of the Year Award in his eighth year of coaching, at a point when he had compiled 414 wins against 160 losses across 574 games, a win rate of 72.1 percent, the highest of any coach on the all-time greatest list at the time. By the end of his career, his winning percentage settled at 70.4 percent across 1,155 wins and 485 losses in the regular season, still the highest of any Hall of Fame coach and the highest of any NBA coach who has coached 500 or more games.

  His 229 postseason wins are the most by any NBA head coach. His 13 conference titles are also a record. He is the only coach in any of North America's major professional sports to win at least ten championships; the records in other leagues stand at six titles in the NFL, nine in the NHL, and seven in Major League Baseball.

  The United States Sports Academy gave him the Amos Alonzo Stagg Coaching Award in both 2002 and 2010. The state of North Dakota presented him with its Roughrider Award. In 2007, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2020, he was a central figure in the documentary miniseries The Last Dance, which examined the final championship season of the Chicago Bulls alongside Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Steve Kerr, and Dennis Rodman. Jackson currently lives at Flathead Lake, Montana, not far from the Glacier National Park home where he retreated after his playing career ended decades earlier.