The Dramatic Exit of the Lakers and Phil Jackson

Wow.  So… that just happened.  In case you were stuck under a rock this weekend and hadn't heard, the Dallas Mavericks completed a shocking sweep of the two-time defending champion LA Lakers on Sunday.  And it wasn’t even close.  The Mavs were better in every way and incredibly, somehow simply dominated the mighty Lakers (much to the delight of Underdogs everywhere, including this one.)  But we will get to the Mavericks later, as they wait to see who their next opponent will be in the Western Finals.  For now we have to focus on an ending.  Because the NBA’s greatest coach of all time has coached his last game.   

Everyone knows about the absolutely amazing string of championships that Phil Jackson was able to put together during his time in the NBA.  He won two championships as a player in New York, six as a head coach in Chicago, and five as a head coach in Los Angeles.  For a grand total of thirteen rings!  And his staggering eleven in twenty years of coaching, is by far the benchmark that all coaches will be judged against for the rest of time.  His overall winning percentage for the regular season as a coach is an unbelievable .704, and his playoff winning percentage is almost as good at .688.  Statistically he is, by far, the best coach the NBA has ever seen.  But as gaudy and as glamorous as his final numbers will stand, enshrined forever in the Naismith Hall of Fame, we should never forget how hard it was for him to get here.  Phil Jackson was a genuine Underdog. 

Could this uniform BE any more 70s?

Jackson had seriously humble beginnings as a lanky forward coming out of the Division 2, University of North Dakota.  He was drafted 17^th in 1967 by the Knicks and stayed there eleven years, but this was back when most players needed second jobs in the off-season to make ends meet.  By the time his playing days were done in 1980 he had those two championships rings, with the Knicks (as a bench player,) and modest career averages of 6.7 points and 4.3 rebounds to show for it.  But what was next?  Back then there weren’t hundreds of TV jobs or assistant coaching spots just waiting for former players like there are now.  “Coach” Jackson had to struggle to make it happen. 

Phil spent many years coaching in obscurity in the CBA and in Puerto Rico, hoping to finally get a chance to get back to the NBA and all the while wondering if it would ever be worth it.  Finally he got his chance as an assistant coach under Doug Collins with the Chicago Bulls in 1987, and when Collins got fired in '89, Phil took over.  And the man never looked back.  His teams won the championship in eleven of the next eighteen years that he would coach.  In the modern NBA, no other coach even comes close to that standard.  His success is unfathomable.  His resume reads like Shakespeare or Woody Allen… It’s just too much for one man to have done.  He’s eleven for thirteen in NBA Finals Appearances.  They really should just name the trophy after him. 

Now detractors will tell you that Phil’s gaudy record owes itself purely to the fact that he’s always somehow coached extremely talented players, and that is true to a point.  In his dealings with high profile players, Phil re-wrote the book on how you deal with the modern NBA player, psychologically.  His “ego-management” became his most impressive attribute.  He didn’t pretend that all players were the same and would respond to the same treatment.  So from Michael Jordan to Bill Wennington to Dennis Rodman to Shaquille O'Neal, he was able to get all of his players to focus their respective energy on the common goal, collectively.  In other words, yes, the talent needed to be there first but Phil was the guy that could make all that talent work together on the basketball court. 

Phil has had three eras as a coach.  In Chicago he was the hippy zen-master, battling the establishment with new and fresh ideas based in many philosophy.  Then in his first five years in LA he became the establishment, and he somehow morphed into “Evil-Emperor” mode, appearing much more smug and arrogant than he did in his previous incarnation.  These days though he is more of an old wise man, seemingly enjoying his “last days” as a coach.  He seems friendlier and much more introspective.  And now, after going down convincingly to the Mavericks in four games (his team completely unraveling around him) he seems finally ready to retire from the game and head to his beloved ranch in Montana.  

And although it hardly seems fitting that the man who in twenty seasons of coaching in the playoffs had never been swept in a series, somehow got swept out of his final one, that is indeed the way it went down yesterday.  The Mavs were amazing.  Even Phil had to admit that they outplaying the Lakers across the board.  But even though yesterday belonged to Jason Terry, Peja Stojakovic, JJ Barea, Dirk Nowitzki, and the rest of the Mavericks, for now at least, history still belongs to Phil. 

Underdogs Out.