Scott Pollard: Phil Jackson 'One Of The Most Overrated Coaches Of Our Time'

[Deeper_Background]

Scott Pollard: Phil Jackson 'One Of The Most Overrated Coaches Of Our Time'
Is Phil Jackson overrated?

The coach with 11 NBA championship rings said after the Dallas Mavericks swept his Los Angeles Lakers that Game 4 was the final game he will coach. Now, the question is where Jackson belongs on the list of all-time great coaches in any sport.

Former Sacramento Kings center Scott Pollard, who battled Jackson's Lakers when they had Shaquille O'Neal, told Grant Napear on KHTK that he thinks Jackson is overrated:

I just think he’s one of the most overrated coaches of our time. He’s only had the greatest players of our era on his teams. Put him in charge of the Sacramento Kings this year, and I don’t mean to offend Sacramento fans, but put him on a team with no Hall-Of-Famers on it at least no one that has established themselves as a Hall-Of-Famer already, put him as the Head Coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers right now and let’s see how he does next year with no Hall-Of-Famers on the team. That’s all I’m saying.
Pollard went on to say that he respects Jackson's championship rings, but he has "never taken a team that wasn’t a playoff team and turned them into a playoff team."

The interview was transcribed by Sports Radio Interviews. Click HERE to listen to the full segment. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/11/scott-pollard-phil-jackson-overrated_n_860550.html

 

[Bob Cook]

Kids: Do drugs.

 

[Small Town Guy]

This tired argument has been debated 6,000 times but I will just point out one thing: The Lakers didn't make the playoffs in 2005 under Rudy T. and Frank Hamblen. They made it in 2006 under Phil. So in addition to everything else he's confused about, Scott is factually incorrect.

 

[Deeper_Background]

A coach should be able to rein in his team. He should be able at all times to imprint his team with class and character. It is something a coach actually has control over. Jackson did not do that, a clear middle finger to controversial Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and also exhibiting the insufferable arrogance that the normal rules never applied to the Zen Master. Like a portrait of an angel in the clouds, he always acted above it all when he was really a down and dirty stealth bomber.

The media, of course, has bought into the shtick because it makes good copy. It was they who created the legend and it was Jackson who eagerly embraced it. Over the years he has given his players weighty books to read (I guarantee they never read past the cover unless it was a comic book and even then it was a 50-50 shot). I remember watching a 60 Minutes segment on Jackson in which, when he wasn’t talking in elliptical nonsense, he was seen going around the locker room sprinkling incense. It is a ritual on Indian reservations in North Dakota, Jackson's native state, which isn't quite the same as a Laker basketball game in Los Angeles. It seemed like such a transparent element to be different, to be unorthodox, when it reeked of narcissistic grandiosity.

Because of the media’s need to create instant heroes and villains, coaches are given far too much credit when the team wins and far too much criticism when the team loses. There would be no talk radio without them.

So the Zen Master is gone. Until he un-retires again because of boredom and missing the klieg lights and having a car trunk still stuffed with incense. And decides to next coach the New York Knickerbockers until he realizes that no amount of incense burning will ever change the most dysfunctional, pathetic and screwed up sports franchise in North America.

But Phil Jackson won’t be held responsible. The structural incompetence of the Knicks will be blamed. And Jackson is undoubtedly writing a sequel to his enormously successful Sacred Hoops, this one apparently called Zen and the Art of Making Millions
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110513/ts_dailybeast/14061_lalakerscoachphiljacksonisoverrated

 

[Starman]

Red Auerbach didn't set the world on fire when he didn't have Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, Sam Jones and John Havlicek, either.

 

[Starman]

A coach should be able to rein in his team. He should be able at all times to imprint his team with class and character. It is something a coach actually has control over. Jackson did not do that, a clear middle finger to controversial Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and also exhibiting the insufferable arrogance that the normal rules never applied to the Zen Master. Like a portrait of an angel in the clouds, he always acted above it all when he was a down and dirty stealth bomber.

The media, of course, has bought into the shtick because it makes good copy. It was they who created the legend and it was Jackson who eagerly embraced it. Over the years he has given his players weighty books to read (I guarantee they never read past the cover unless it was a comic book and even then it was a 50-50 shot). I remember watching a 60 Minutes segment on Jackson in which, when he wasn’t talking in elliptical nonsense, he was seen going around the locker room sprinkling incense. It is a ritual on Indian reservations in North Dakota, Jackson's native state, which isn't quite the same as a Laker basketball game in Los Angeles. It seemed like such a transparent element to be different, to be unorthodox, when it reeked of narcissistic grandiosity.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110513/ts_dailybeast/14061_lalakerscoachphiljacksonisoverrated

No modern NBA coach has been able to "rein in" his players for the last 20-30 years. Some talk about it a lot and get reputations as "disciplinarians," "taskmasters," "sticklers on the fundamentals, etc etc." but they usually get fired (or quit) after two or three seasons tops.

Current examples are Scott Skiles and John Kuester.

Kuester will be fired 15 seconds after the NBA lockout is settled (the only reason he hasn't been already is that ownership doesn't want to pay two coaches while games aren't being played); Skiles is probably OK for the moment, but odds are good it will all fly to pieces within another year.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

Scott Pollard: apparently one of the biggest dumbasses of our time.

 

[shockey]

Scott Pollard: apparently one of the biggest dumbasses of our time.

THIS.

listen, who knows what jackson does if he's starting from scratch with a team. but he sure as hell took full advantage of the hands he was dealt, which is nothing to take for granted...

 

[Jake_Taylor]

Scot.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Phil can't win without extreme talent, no NBA coach can.

But as easy as it is to dismiss his accomplishments since his teams have had Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Shaq, Kobe etc... on them the fact of the matter is the Lakers and Bulls won titles when Phil was coaching and they didn't when he left.

Getting the most out of your superstar is part of coaching. These days, in the NBA, it may be the biggest part.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

We have to forgive Pollard, after all he did go to KU.

 

[Double Down]

Simmons wrote what could probably serve as a rebuttal to this nonsense that I posted in the NBA playoff thread. It's not true that anyone could have coached Jordan. Or Kobe. Or even Shaq, for that matter. I remember the 2.5 season stretch with Del Harris that was capped off by Kurt Rambis after Harris was fired (because he was too stubborn to play Kobe Bryant regularly) and an embarrassing sweep at the hands of the Spurs.

Just to shoot down one minor point that Buzz makes, something I've seen repeated a lot by people who like to traffic in snark, both Gasol and Bynum are big readers, and did in fact read the books Jackson gave them. And Kobe, of all people, read "The Tipping Point" when Jackson gave it to him, though he threw away just about every other book from what I understand.

 

[DanOregon]

What is sad about it - I think Pollard might be right if you think of a coach as an x and o guy, developer of talent. But there are a lot of guys like that that have been chewed up and spit out in today's NBA.
What makes Jackson great is his ability to get players to play for him and keep them engaged without "losing" the team. You think back to coaches who have won titles in the last 30 years and being able to get players to play for them has to be the thing that sets them apart - Jackson, Riley, Daly, Poppavich. Even those guys didn't always have a ring to give them credibility with players.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

A coach should be able to rein in his team. He should be able at all times to imprint his team with class and character. It is something a coach actually has control over. Jackson did not do that, a clear middle finger to controversial Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and also exhibiting the insufferable arrogance that the normal rules never applied to the Zen Master. Like a portrait of an angel in the clouds, he always acted above it all when he was really a down and dirty stealth bomber.

The media, of course, has bought into the shtick because it makes good copy. It was they who created the legend and it was Jackson who eagerly embraced it. Over the years he has given his players weighty books to read (I guarantee they never read past the cover unless it was a comic book and even then it was a 50-50 shot). I remember watching a 60 Minutes segment on Jackson in which, when he wasn’t talking in elliptical nonsense, he was seen going around the locker room sprinkling incense. It is a ritual on Indian reservations in North Dakota, Jackson's native state, which isn't quite the same as a Laker basketball game in Los Angeles. It seemed like such a transparent element to be different, to be unorthodox, when it reeked of narcissistic grandiosity.

Because of the media’s need to create instant heroes and villains, coaches are given far too much credit when the team wins and far too much criticism when the team loses. There would be no talk radio without them.

So the Zen Master is gone. Until he un-retires again because of boredom and missing the klieg lights and having a car trunk still stuffed with incense. And decides to next coach the New York Knickerbockers until he realizes that no amount of incense burning will ever change the most dysfunctional, pathetic and screwed up sports franchise in America.

But Phil Jackson won’t be held responsible. The structural incompetence of the Knicks will be blamed. And Jackson is undoubtedly writing a sequel to his enormously successful Sacred Hoops, this one apparently called Zen and the Art of Making Millions
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110513/ts_dailybeast/14061_lalakerscoachphiljacksonisoverrated

My rule is that I stop reading a Bissinger piece the moment he mentions a work of his, whether it's Friday Night Lights or some other book he's desperate to pimp for street cred.

The end came quickly this time.

 

[Cubbiebum]

A coach should be able to rein in his team. He should be able at all times to imprint his team with class and character. It is something a coach actually has control over. Jackson did not do that, a clear middle finger to controversial Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and also exhibiting the insufferable arrogance that the normal rules never applied to the Zen Master. Like a portrait of an angel in the clouds, he always acted above it all when he was really a down and dirty stealth bomber.

The media, of course, has bought into the shtick because it makes good copy. It was they who created the legend and it was Jackson who eagerly embraced it. Over the years he has given his players weighty books to read (I guarantee they never read past the cover unless it was a comic book and even then it was a 50-50 shot). I remember watching a 60 Minutes segment on Jackson in which, when he wasn’t talking in elliptical nonsense, he was seen going around the locker room sprinkling incense. It is a ritual on Indian reservations in North Dakota, Jackson's native state, which isn't quite the same as a Laker basketball game in Los Angeles. It seemed like such a transparent element to be different, to be unorthodox, when it reeked of narcissistic grandiosity.

Because of the media’s need to create instant heroes and villains, coaches are given far too much credit when the team wins and far too much criticism when the team loses. There would be no talk radio without them.

So the Zen Master is gone. Until he un-retires again because of boredom and missing the klieg lights and having a car trunk still stuffed with incense. And decides to next coach the New York Knickerbockers until he realizes that no amount of incense burning will ever change the most dysfunctional, pathetic and screwed up sports franchise in America.

But Phil Jackson won’t be held responsible. The structural incompetence of the Knicks will be blamed. And Jackson is undoubtedly writing a sequel to his enormously successful Sacred Hoops, this one apparently called Zen and the Art of Making Millions
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110513/ts_dailybeast/14061_lalakerscoachphiljacksonisoverrated

His native state is Montana. He went to a high school in North Dakota but lived just across the border in Montana the whole time.

 

[cyclingwriter]

Since the premise is Jackson only one with super talent...are there examples of teams that didn't win with superior talent? Detroit in the 1970s had Dave Bing and Bob Lanier, both legitimate HOFers and they were pretty bad, however, I am not sure what the rest of the team looked like.

The knock in the 1960s was West and Baylor couldn't get past the Celtics (who were more loaded). I always felt the early 1980s Sixers should have won more titles with Erving, Malone, Jones, Cheeks and Toney. Again, you can point to the Celtics at that time as well.

 

[TigerVols]

Derek Fisher has 5 rings...so by the Phil-o-meter, he must be one of the all-time greatest guards.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Derek Fisher has 5 rings...so by the Phil-o-meter, he must be one of the all-time greatest guards.

Norm Stewart's lack of a single Final Four makes him a **** coach.

Come on, now.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

Derek Fisher has 5 rings...so by the Phil-o-meter, he must be one of the all-time greatest guards.

Norm Stewart's lack of a single Final Four makes him a **** coach.

Come on, now.

I wouldn't say ****, but it keeps him out of the "all-time greats" conversation.

I think Scot Pollard is awesome and I get what he's saying to a degree, but I can't really agree. Great coaches are great when they put themselves in the right situation. Phil Jackson is great at coaching teams with players like Michael Jordan, Kobe, etc. I don't know if, say, Adolph Rupp would have been, but they are both great coaches.

If I was looking for a guy to make a losing team a playoff team, I'd probably take Larry Brown over Phil Jackson. If I've got three hall-of-famers I'd go the other way around.

 

[LongTimeListener]

It's a superstar league and there have been a lot of coaches who proved they can't handle superstars. I don't know how much psychology it took, but getting two titles after the Kobe-Shaq feud went nuclear, and then steering the team to the finals during Kobe's year in the court system, was some legit coaching.

I guess Red Auerbach is everyone's definition of greatest coach ever, he is before my time but isn't he more like greatest personnel man ever? I don't know who could have lost with the teams he put together.