Phil Jackson

10 quotes

Basketball Player · Born Sep 17, 1945 · United States Of America · Male

Philip Douglas "Phil" Jackson (born September 17, 1945) is an American professional basketball executive, former coach and former player, currently serving as president of the New York Knicks in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Jackson was the head coach of the Chicago Bulls from 1989 until 1998, during which Chicago won six NBA championships. His next team, the Los Angeles Lakers, won five championships from 2000 until 2010. In total, Jackson has won 11 NBA titles as a coach, surpassing the previous record of nine set by Red Auerbach. He also won two championships as a player with the Knicks in 1970 and 1973, and holds the NBA record for the most combined championships (13) as a player and a head coach. Jackson is known for his use of Tex Winter's triangle offense as well as a holistic approach to coaching that is influenced by Eastern philosophy, earning him the nickname "Zen Master". Jackson cites Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as one of the major guiding forces in his life. He also applies Native American spiritual practices as documented in his book Sacred Hoops. He is the author of several candid books about his teams and his basketball strategies. Jackson is also a recipient of the state of North Dakota's Roughrider Awar

All Managment (2)Humble (1)Growing Up (1)Coaching (1)Self-Confidence (1)Nature (1)New York City (1)New York Knicks (1)Shaquille O'Neal (1)Negotiation (1)Beyond the Tactical (1)Consent (1)Mentoring (1)Basketball (1)Rural Vs. Urban (1)

From “Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success”

“The key to a 3-peat is change. You can't 'repeat' the formula. Your opponent has already figured it out. You have to keep growing. Continue into the unknown.”

Tagged: strategy

“One thing I’ve learned as a coach is that you can’t force your will on people. If you want them to act differently, you need to inspire them to change themselves.”

Tagged: Coaching, Mentoring, Leadership

“My intention was to give the players the freedom to figure out how to fit themselves within the system, rather than dictating from on high what I wanted them to do. Some players felt uncomfortable because they'd never been given that kind of latitude before. Others felt completely liberated.”

Tagged: Freedom, Liberation, Open

“I learned to dial back my ego and distribute power as widely as possible without surrendering final authority. Paradoxically, this approach strengthened my effectiveness because it freed me to focus on my job as keeper of the team's vision.”

Tagged: Ego, Managment, Negotiation, Power Dynamics

“Kobe, who had been named the NBA's most valuable player that year, was particularly laser focused. I've always been impressed by Kobe's resilience and ironclad self-confidence. Unlike Shaq, who was often plagued by self-doubt, Kobe never let such thoughts cross his mind. If someone set the bar at…”

Tagged: Confidence, Kobe Bryant, Self-Confidence, Shaquille O'Neal

“The essence of coaching is to get the players to wholeheartedly agree to being coached, then offer them a sense of their destiny as a team.”

Tagged: Consent, Managment, Same Page

“This forced me to start thinking of the game as a strategic problem rather than a tactical one. As a young player, you tend to focus most of your attention on how you're going beat your man in any given game. But now I began to see basketball as a dynamic game of chess in which all the pieces were…”

Tagged: Beyond the Tactical, Growing Up

“I bought a bicycle and pedaled all over town, trying to connect with the real New York City. But no matter how much time I spent in Central Park, to me living in the city felt like living indoors. I needed to be someplace where I could feel a strong connection to the earth.”

Tagged: Nature, New York City, Rural Vs. Urban

“What I liked about basketball was how interconnected everything was. The game was a complex dance of moves and countermoves that made it much more alive than other sports I played. In addition, basketball demanded a high level of synergy. To succeed, you needed to rely upon everybody else on the…”

Tagged: Basketball, Sports as Transcendence, Teamwork

“The old Knicks were used to taking responsibility for our own laundry because there was no equipment manager then, and strange as it may sound, washing our own uniforms had a unifying effect on the team. If the newcomers weren't willing to wash their own gear, we wondered whether they would take…”

Tagged: Humble, New York Knicks, The Importance of Drudgery

Phil Jackson

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