Phil Jackson and the New York Knicks – NBA Feature (Part 1)
Many people thought the league has seen the last of the legendary coach Phil Jackson, when the Los Angeles Lakers got swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the western Conference Semifinals last NBA season.
True to his word, the coach who holds the record of orchestrating 11 NBA title runs, hung up his boots and announced his retirement from the game.
However, such is the aura and the legacy of the Zen Master that in the months after his retirement rumours about his possible comeback started to surface. These vibes were recently given a further push by the legendary Los Angeles
Lakers centre and a four time NBA champion, Shaquille O’ Neal. The Diesel, who is nowadays busy in promoting his new book, Shaq Uncut – My Story, has indicated that Jackson will be back and went as far as to say that he will the head coach of the New York
Knicks, the team for which he played for 11 seasons before moving on to the New Jersey Nets in the later part of his career.
Jackson’s contributions to NBA are stupendous.
He was not as outstanding and gifted a player like Bill Russell or Larry Bird, but was a hard worker and was blessed with exceptional basketball acumen. His 13 years playing career, earning him two NBA championships, ended in 1980
but that was not the end, in fact that was the start of a new beginning for Phil Jackson.
Soon after retiring, he stepped into coaching shoes and went on to become the greatest ever coaches in the history of NBA.
His first assignment was Chicago Bulls, where he first joined as an assistant coach but was later promoted to head coach in 1989. Under his coaching, the league saw the most dominant basketball force assemble in the windy city
and led by the iconic Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls went on to grab six championships in nine years. However despite of the mammoth success; he was sacked in 1998 because of differences with the general manager Jerry Krause.
Phil then took the responsibilities of coaching Los Angeles Lakers and immediately made an impact by taking the Lakers to a championship win in 1999-2000 season. In the next ten years, he made Lakers into one of the most feared
teams in the league and the Lakers went on to win four more championships under his coaching, the most by any team in the last decade.
His triangle-offense strategy has been the highlight of his coaching career and earned him a lot of accolades. With Chicago, the offense revolved around Michael Jordan and Scott Pippen and later with Lakers, it circled around Shaquille
O Neal and Kobe Bryant.
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