Kobe may have promised one more championship to show his appreciation and send his coach out the right way but the Lakers broke. Still, these two guys have had an incredible journey together, with all the peaks, valleys, vestibules and alleys that you’d expect … and then some. When we all thought Phil was done – in more ways then one in 2004 – it wasn’t hinted at, it was stated in his best-selling, all-telling book (‘The Last Season: A Team In Search Of A Soul’) that his relationship with Bryant was in a state of disrepair. You would never believe in a million years that, back then in just a couple of 365’s these two would repair, lick their wounds, heal and at the start of this year, be on the verge of a possible second three-peat and Jax’s fourth overall. Sure, it wasn’t to be, but one thing was clear to see; Phil and Kobe’s redemption was. It was all good in the end.
Whatever went on between them since the death of their original dynasty has rocked every critics argument that both men and their teams had seen their best days. Whatever was said will remain between Kobe, Phil and the bait when they go fly-fishing together and reminisce down the line in years time. Still, whatever was done renders his last book forgotten and somewhat obsolete (it’s still a great read though). 2010 to 2011 was the ‘real’ last season, and by changing his mind and Kobe as a player, Phil successfully rewrote his own, and his basketball second son’s history. They really got it together. Thank God for the dream of Jeanie Buss.
Jackson has proved that you can catch lightening in a bottle twice, and almost did it three times over. Decades after Kobe unlaces them one last time, the debate will rage over who was better; him or Mike. No one will quite know both men and have quite the qualified gospel to speak on them like Phil Jackson does. He truly brought the best out of them and helped them both become the icons they are. Now that’s influence; that’s inspiration. Jordan was trying to dig his way out the East with Coach Collins, but he didn’t win anything until he was ‘Dougless’. No offense to Doug Collins, but Jackson truly understood Jordan, and together they made history — season after season, after championship, after championship. (You know the rest.)
No man has ever been synonymous with two teams, but still regarded in his own legend like Phil Jackson. A legend on two teams and a great role player in his on-court days for New York, Phil’s always been reliable. They say the worst players make the best coaches but Coach Jackson is no average man — he’s played his role to a tee as Basketball’s true iron man in stark contrasts. Speaking of reliable, it looked like Jackson was moulding a successor in the form of assistant and former three-peat champion role-player Brian Shaw. Normally an inexperienced coach would raise doubts but not when he comes with the tutoring and endorsement of a sheer legend of strategy. Even though the Lakers contender reigns have been given to the greatest young coach in the game, Mike Brown, Brian Shaw and his teachings from the Zen would make a great coach there or anywhere.
There is no doubt that there is commiseration aplenty because between the Windy City and the California sun, the calm and the storm, the red, purple and championship gold, the Eastern philosophy and promise and the triangle and the shape of things to come – there is, hasn’t been and won’t be anyone quite like Phil Jackson. Just like Shaquille O’Neal, it’s hard to say goodbye to such a unique and original legend — but just like the daddy in Los Angeles and all over the league 00 the father of coaching’s legacy is set in stone, and that’s greater then one more ‘chip. Phil Jackson may have not met Larry O’Brien this year, but he’ll meet Red in the halls as a true champion.
“Since the early 1960’s, I’ve played or coached in more than two thousand games, and I can say safely there is nothing I’ve experienced outside of basketball that can match its intensity, its highs and lows, its feeling of fulfilment or failure. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without it.” — PHIL JACKSON, ‘The Last Season’.
