As Phil says

The most profitable and one of the best basketball history trainers is returning to New York, where he started as a NBA player. The methods that Jackson used often were not clear to anyone other than him, but they brought out the results from year to yearPhil's life is a wonderful story about the fate that this deeply spritual man believes to the end.

"Where are you from?"

"From Europe ..."

"It's clear to me. Where in Europe?"

"Sarajevo, Bosnia ... if you've ever heard"

"Sarajevo" Of course I heard it, it was a very interesting city, I read about the history of Sarajevo, and there were two warfare started there, did not it? "

So it was about my acquaintance with Phil Jackson.

I wanted to talk about basketball. He talked about everything but basketball. In the end, we talked about Sarajevo for most of the time ....

Basketball has never occupied Phile Jackson's life. Maybe he was so successful too. He was thinking about his players, about the teams, about training, about how to convince them to believe in the concept of the team, but at the end of the day some other things were proritet.

"If you asked me who was going to be our coach and that's a top coach, I would single out everyone except for Phill Jackson." He drove a bike, had his hair up to his shoulder, consumed everything and everything, and he was a real rebel. what looks like a coach. "

This is how Phila described the Knicks legend Walt Frazier from the toy days. Phil grew up as a rebel child in the family of believers. The father was a Pentecostal (religious group in Christianity) omniscient. There was no TV in Phil's house, and the family did not believe in standard medicine. Mom was constantly preparing a family for the end of the world. The shelter was purified, the cans were filled. Kids Jackson did not spend time on the street with other children. For entertainment, social games were used once a week to get them to think from their feet.

Phil started to work in high school. He tried everything but he was the best in baseball and basketball. He received the scholarship from the University of North Dakota, where the trainer was legendary Bill Fitch. Can you imagine a coach like Fitch nowadays working in a place like North Dakota?

Mostly Jackson was a bit skilled, but he became famous for the defense game. Bill Fitch sold the same fora to interested NBA scouts. Phil Jackson would sit in the middle of the rear seat of the car and then with its extremely long arms simultaneously opened the front door on both sides without moving it (That's how it used to be).

Knicks drafted Jackson in 1967, and shortly after arrival, he announced to the famous Red Holzman that he wanted to be a priest and then ran down the field. Phil gave each of his best practices, of which the most feared teammates were. Jackson's elbow was a killer weapon, so the rest of the team had to calm him down and properly direct his fighting spirit. Phil still fell in love with Red Holzman at that time and remained a faithful admirer of that style to the end.

He spent 11 years in the NBA as a solid player and won two titles with Knicks, although he may have been more focused on his moves outside the court. He left his chin and became a vegetarian, he went regularly to anti-war demonstrations. In a book he wrote with Charley Rosen called "Maverick" he described in detail his consumption of marijuana and LSD and widely talked about fate and karma. He was experimenting with mysticism and spiritualism. He simply tried everything that was worn at that time.

Due to such a reputation, Phil Jackson could not get a job in the NBA for a long time. He was a coach in the CBA league where he won the championship title. He was also a trainer in Puerto Rico. In the NBA he encountered a closed door. One of the few who was willing to give him a chance was Jerry Crause. The bulls had vacated the position of an assistant coach while Stan Albeck was in charge.

Crause urged Albania to hold a meeting with Jackson. After his consent, Phil appeared with a long beard, a face faded with Puerto Rican sun, long hair, and a large Ecuadorian hat with a feather fluttering. Phil began the meeting with a story about a tropical bird from which the pen was taken, after which Albeck got up and left.

In the summer of 1987, Phil Jackson was ready to leave basketball and found a standard job. Children were slowly preparing to go to college and the family needed a regular source of funding that basketball did not bring at that moment. All Phil's friends from the '60s and' 70s have long become part of the establishment. Jobs in banks, lawyers, some 9 to 5 to earn money. Phil resisted for basketball. Suddenly he had no more.

The fate involved her fingers here. The fate that Phil Jackson deeply believes in. In October 1987, the assistant trainer Bulls Gene Littles got the position of director for the development of the then-new NBA team Charlotte Hornets. Bulls stayed with the vacant seat of the assistant coach before the start of the season. Nobody thought of Jackson ...

In fact, he remembered one of them a body who lost her phone number and tried to get in touch with him. He tried a couple of addresses without results, and then he remembered that Jackson had come to an interview in Bullse and called them to evnutually get some contact. That call again lit the light of general manager Jerry Crause.

Jackson was aware that this offer by Bulls was probably the last chance to enter the NBA. He shaved his chin to his mustache and wore his better than the two suits he possessed. Doug Collins was ready to take his professional staff.

Since the beginning of his coaching career, Jackson has had one quality that has only top quality. He knew with people ie. he knew how to win the toys. You can be a top-level tactician, you can be anything but if you are not flexible if you do not know how to reach your players, to understand what people are and what moves them, you can not be a top coach. Phil had this trait from the beginning.

His elective subject at college was psychology, he had always learned modesty in his family. His father had a whole life on his desk with a cardboard card with his little feet and big head. The message was: "Do not let your glory ever hit your head, because then you will not be able to walk in your shoes." Jackson never tried to be bigger than his players, to give more statements, to have more pictures in the paper. He always knew where he was and always knew how to evaluate the player.

Michael Jordan read out immediately. He realized that Jordan always needed a paternal figure. Someone who will tell him how long he can and who will punish him when he goes too far. Again, do this in a way that it is not humiliation or that the biggest star is alienated. Phil, in seven days, realized what Doug Collins or coaches before him were never.

Jackson has always thought carefully about his moves. He worked a little bit spontaneously. He planned to make it clear to Jordan that he did not have to be the first shooter of the league. He has to involve teammates more during each match, otherwise they will not be able to help when decisive matches come in. That the minutes should be smaller. That the Bulls will never be champions if they all get down to his one-on-one game while others watch.

When he became Head Coach Phil, with his assistant Tex Winter, installed a battered attack or "an attack of the same opportunities for everyone". How did Phil come to the idea? Nice. He read a book during summer his assistant Winter, written in the late 50's on the triangle attack that this invented at Kansas State, and decided that this is a system that will make the Bulls compact team.

"This system emphasizes adding, kicking and quickly release the ball. What we call pure basketball. The basis is that the main star and the rest of the team learn to schedule and movements and to start to believe in what we do. Then everyone will be able to contribute in important matches because they will know where to position themselves in order to be usable "

Triangle attack of course was not "attack equal opportunities for all," not even close, but he did that all who play feel work team and to really believe that they will get the ball when the defense to gather around the best player.

Phil asked his players to read the defense and to follow the movement of a player who dropped the ball under the basket. These were the basic principles of movement within the triangle. It knew where to stand, but also the players were supposed to watch what the opposing side was doing and to act accordingly.

Since the beginning of his career, Jackson has recorded excellent results and introduced methods that were not common for any basketball level. Scouting for the games was often ruined by inserts from films, especially after defeat. The two favorite films were the "Wizard of Oz" at the time of Bulls and "Shrek" in the time of Lakers. Dressing rooms were cleaned of negative energy, and Phil is much studied Native American and Eastern cultures has created an aura of good vibrations in the meetings with the help of incense and salt, spices and other things that he purchased from around the world (once the Lakers almost quench of smoke during the creation of positive energy in Hawaii).

Jackson was the first coach in the NBA who refused to call a time-out in moments of crisis for his team in the preparation period and at the beginning of the season to see the reactions of players on the field and their ability in times of stress. He liked that every player in the team finds his corner in the field and his role in which he feels well.

"The dressing room is a laboratory of human behavior, but here we are not talking about rabbits and experiments, ideas have led people to the building of bridges and buildings, I like to think about their players, I like to imagine how they get better through our actions, I like to find ways to If you keep thinking about how it would be better for you to have some other players, if you make combinations to drive them out, and if you're not loyal or you will hate them or they will hurt you, and that can not be productive. .. "

If we talk about tactics Phil Jackson was the first NBA coach to start picking up a roll on the lap to point to the front line. That move changed the series against New York in 1993 and changed defense from PNR to the NBA and later to the basketball world.

Phil was cautiously trying to trigger every player to get him to think. He shared the books with most. Will Perdue won the "Great Santini", Michael Jordan read "Solomon's Song". Horace Grant corrected the offensive leap by reading "Dine". Shaq largely deposited Phil's recommendations in the dark parts of his villa. Phil during flight flights and bus driving gave players a chance to fill in psychological tests.