Bricklayer said:
I'm not sure which way you think that argues, but it actually supports the point that Phil Jackson did NOT make his teams champions out of whole cloth. He is not THAT good. Phil is a good coach. But the primary difference between he and the other good coaches in the league is that he has been handed the keys to potentially GREAT teams while they have been handed the keys to merely good ones. You hand Phil the keys to a merely good one, and that's precisely what he will perform as -- a good coach. Not a great one.
Making Shaq/Kobe or MJ/Pippen into great champions is IMHO probably EASIER than taking noted choker Chris Webber and super-softie Peja Stojakovic and getting them to the brink, or taking a starless group of hustlers in Detroit and whipping Phil's butt with them. Good coach, but let's flip the positions of Phil and some of the other good coaches in the league -- give them MJ and Shaq, give him their teams, see how many titles he wins. And see how many they get. The results might come as something of a shocker to the legions of blind PJ worshippers who think its somehow magical to win titles with the best players in history on your roster.
The point is the following, there haven't been many coaches that have developed teams from the quote on quote beginning because most are A) not given the chance or B) not good enough to do so. Phil definitely had talent, I never denied that, but most of the coaches I also listed are in teh same catagory. In all Sports you get the same thing in the PROs. College is usually a different body of work since TURNAROUND is so rampant but in the PROs most coaches don't develop there own championships but rather take talented teams to the next level.
For years, the Pistons had a good team, usually 1st, 2nd or 3rd seed in the east, and last year Brown, WHO FOR 16 years never won a title with GOOD playoff teams eventually won it. Why did he win it? There could be many answers, but do you honestly feel from his time in Philly to his time in Detroit he became that much better of a coach? Not really. His team wasn't even that good until they stole Sheed for scrubs. Phil took good, or even very good teams over the edge to a title. That's my point. Larry did the same exact thing with the help of a great GM in Dumars (Prince Draft, Wallace, etc.). Popovich took the pieces of a very good team in Robinson and got lucky as hell that he drafted arguably the best player drafted since Jordan left into a periennel playoff contender. His last title was won on drafted and developed talent, but he still had Duncan as a fixture of both title teams.
My point is you can dog Jackson for being at the right place at the right time, but so were most coaches. Coaches can only take there talent so far. I'm not sure if Jackson could have gotten the Kings over the hump let's say in 2002+ if he had to deal with the injuries the Kings went through, but which coach could have? Most coaches can't take injuries to serious players as seen by Jackson last year without Malone in which they got pancaked in the Finals (80+% winning with Malone during the RS, 50~% without).
Most coaches don't take players from the starting block to the end block, it's just not probable. Sloan tried, and he still never really finished the job. Honestly Brick, name a coach that did. I'll give you that Larry did an excellent job last year, but without Sheed at the 4, they wouldn't have gotten past Indiana or maybe even NJ. I believe it was Campbell and Ben at the 4/5.
As I said before, Phil takes good teams and makes them title contenders, yearly. He won't take Atlanta and put them on the map, honestly no coach can, but he could take a team like the Kings + a few moves and maybe do it. Not saying I like Phil, not saying he would be a great fit, just saying he's a good coach. Most coaches can't even dream of 1 title, he has 9, that's saying something. In the NBA right now there are 2 coaches with NBA titles (Larry, Popovich) and that's it. So to detract what Phil did is rather silly. I never said he's a miracle worker, I said he get's the job done which is what you judge coaching success on.
Apparently, some disagree.
