He has 9 NBA championship rings. A tenth could come as early as next week. Ten rings would make him the winningest championship coach in NBA history, breaking a tie of 9 with Celtics legend Red Auerbach. But if he does get the tenth ring, is he the best championship coach? No, and he is not even a top 10 coach of all-time.
Phil Jackson is most know for his 6 NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls. Most of that success is attributed to the legendary performances of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Their success was predicated on the use of the “triangle offense.” Many people give Phil Jackson the credit for the triangle offense. But unfortunately, many people do not know that great Bulls assistant Tex Winter, is the creator and mastermind of the triangle offense.
When Jackson took over an underachieving Los Angeles Lakers team, he brought the offense with him, and Tex Winter as a consultant. Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal used that offense to win 3 more titles for Jackson, coming in a 3-peat from 2000-2002.
Phil Jackson is definitely a laid back coach. Not very volatile at his players or officials, Phil likes to let his team figure out what needs to be done in moments of adversity. The opponent will make a run of ten straight points, and where most coaches would take a timeout, Phil lets his players play through. And that is easy to do when you have smart, talented players your whole coaching career with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant, and Shaq. He does little coaching, and has been consistently out coached in the past few years. As the Lakers have gotten younger, since the Kobe-Shaq breakup, Phil has had a new challenge in not having a team full of championship experience to work with.
In the 2008 NBA Finals, Doc Rivers of the Boston Celtics repeatedly outcoached Phil Jackson. Exploiting matchups, drawing up better and more effective plays, and motivating his team.
The best example was game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals. With the Lakers up by 20 or more most of the game, the Lakers calmed down, and were not playing with any urgency. Any coach would have encouraged his team to keep attacking, and to not let up. But Phil sat back and watched as the Rivers motivated Celtics made a huge run and cut the lead to 2 after 3 quarters. During that stretch, Phil watched from the bench, sitting down, and observing his team struggle by turning the ball over and taking bad outside shots.
Faced with the opposite situation on game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals, Phil Jackson saw his Laker team down big at halftime. Phil was unable to motivate his team, watching his players play with the same lackluster intensity as they displayed in the first half. They lost that game by 39 points, and were eliminated from the playoffs.
Yes Phil Jackson is a decent coach, but he lacks necessary skills that make great coaches able to get the most out of their players when that task seems impossible. Anybody can win with hall of fame players against mediocre competition. In the 1990’s the Bulls did not have any real competition to make them worry or play harder. Same thing with the Lakers in the early 2000’s. But now with stiff competition, and the lack of multiple hall of fame players to coach, Phil Jackson has shown even with ten championship rings, he is nowhere near as good a coach as the likes of Red Auerbach, Pat Riley, Red Holzman, Gregg Popovich, Jerry Sloan, Rudy Tomjonavich, and Jack Ramsay.