Phil Jackson (1)Reseñas

Eleven Rings is about basketball but is equally about leadership and spirituality. I don't read many sports stories but I am glad I read this one.

Picked this up after seeing "The Last Dance" documentary to get more perspective on the story. It did not disappoint in that regard. I had great nostalgic feelings for the 90s Bulls while reading. Beyond this though, it gave me some insight into the 00s Lakers, which I did not pay close attention to at the time, and detailed Phil's origin story including his time on the Knicks, which I was curious about. Interspersed throughout these recollections, are tidbits on mindfulness, managing egos, and confronting mistakes. They are ingrained in a way to be relevant and not overbearing.

As coach of the Chicago Bulls and then the Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won a total of eleven NBA championships. Eleven Rings is both a memoir and a self-help/management book. However, Phil doesn’t go into much detail on his personal life. He mostly mentions it when it directly relates to what was going on with his basketball life at the time. The main focus of the book is his coaching philosophy and what has influenced it. Phil is a student of many teachers. He reads a lot and seems especially drawn to Native American and Buddhist philosophy.

I actually got this book when it first came out because I was a huge Chicago Bulls fan back in the Michael Jordan days. Like most of the books I acquire, it promptly went into my TBR pile. I dug it out after watching the docuseries about Michael Jordan’s last season with the Bulls, The Last Dance, on Netflix. I wanted to know more about Phil Jackson and his coaching because it was clear from the documentary that his players loved him.

I enjoyed learning more about Phil’s unorthodox style, from the infamous triangle defense, to teaching his players to meditate. Every season, he gave each player a book that he had chosen especially for them that he thought would speak to them in some way or have something to teach them. It could be anything – non-fiction, a novel or poetry. How cool is that? They didn’t always read them but at least he tried.

He doesn’t go into detail about his players’ personal lives but he is quite candid about challenges he had coaching various players. Of course he struggled with Dennis Rodman, but he also had trouble with others, including quite a bit with Kobe Bryant, who was still a teenager when he started with the Lakers. I was impressed by how he handled each player differently according to the guidance they needed. He didn’t subscribe to a one-size-fits-all approach in anything he did. That’s not to say that he was a perfect coach. He messed up sometimes and he admits his mistakes in this book.

You don’t need to be a hard-core basketball fan to enjoy Eleven Rings. There are technical details about basketball of course, but I feel like a lot of the coaching skills he uses can be applied in everyday life as well. Recommended.

Is this book really a classic?! And why? I picked up this book hoping for some spiritual 'mmph' mixed in with some basketball. In the end, I don't feel like this book succeeded in giving me very much of either.

This was an enjoyable read across basketball history with one of the prime movers. It was interesting to get some off-court, during-practice looks at the personalities and personal journeys of some of the great(est) players, as well as hearing how Jackson incorporated the eightfold path in achieving his eleven rings. Selfishness, selflessness, mind(fullness) over matter, personal growth, teamwork...I would have appreciated hearing a little more about the struggles, doubt, conflict that led to this devotion to Buddhist principles, but that maybe says more about my story than Phil's.

Fascinating book about Phil Jackson and the Bulls. His philosophy about both life and sports. It's really a great leadership book, how to lead not just manage. Read this while I still in my basketball fan phase. Fascinating insights on basketball and also Phil Jackson is a very interesting individual.

Phil Jackson could have been anything---teacher, diplomat, even philosopher-king, perhaps---but he decided to become a basketball coach. And what a basketball coach. How can you resist wanting to learn more about him?

I couldn’t. I wasn’t really interested in all the basketball talk (who can remember all these basketball words and players?) but I loved seeing how Jackson coached. It was fascinating to see how he managed not only showboat-er Koby Bryant but the odd-bird Dennis Rodman and even Mr. Basketball Michael Jordan. He coached out-of-the-box and from-the-heart and that worked. Fascinating.

"Everything we did was designed to reinforce this unity...I used discipline not as a weapon but as a way to instill harmony into the players' lives." (Jackson, 2013, p. 158)

The Zen Master of basketball coaching is back in his newest release. Although some familiar territor is retreaded, there is a plethora of new material and insights into the mind and philosophy of arguably the greatest professional coach of all time. Highlights of the book include locker-room access to the famous dynasties of the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers with special attention to comparisons between greats like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Phil makes sharp commentary and observations about life in the NBA, the nature of the business side of sports, and the value of trust and teamwork. His leadership style is unparalleled and for those that are fans, this book is tremendous!

"Selflessness is the soul of teamwork" (P. Jackson, 2001)

If you love basketball, you know the name Phil Jackson - he is the winningest coach in NBA history dubbed the 'Zen Master' by those who know about his unique style of leadership. His amazing life and basketball journey are captured in this absolute gem as it chronicles across his life and basketball days from his days as a college star from Montana to the bright lights of New York as a Knickerbocker, and finally to his epic dynasty runs with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. Adding to the authenticity, this incredible book is narrated by Phil Jackson and close friend and co-author, Charley Rosen, so listeners get to hear the voice of this legendary coach. Highly recommended to those who want insight into the leadership style and fantastic basketball voyage of Phil Jackson.

Next book was Phil Jackson’s The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. I enjoyed this book but also did not enjoy some parts of this book. The last season is a book about my team the Los Angeles Lakers when they had a super strong team. We had 4 hall of fame players and I was sure it was going to be a piece of cake. Phil went through the year in kind of a personal journal of the year. In 03-04, we had Kobe, Shaq, Gary Payton (the Glove), Karl Malone and of course others but with those four guys we ought to have locked it up. In the end we got spanked by Detroit 4-1. Yes there were injuries, and “bad officiating” and all the other excuses but the thing that I loved and hated about this book was Phil’s insights into the personalities of the Superstars. I really understood how much he admired the big man Shaq. Shaquille O'Neal truly was a force at center, he is huge, strong and able to clog up the middle. When he was there to play he was there to play. The thing I didn’t like about him was how he only wanted to play during the playoffs, had his surgery during the season and not during the off season because “I’m not going to do it during my time. I’ll do it on the clubs time,” he said. He would take off and not do any work to stay in shape. Kobe on the other hand has a huge ego. He was going through the rape changes at that time and he and Phil had a hard time working together. Kobe would take too many shots, there was a feud between him and Shaq, and he does not like the triangle offense. Malone was just awesome. He was aged but he could still play and we got a lot of good minutes out of him. I really wish that he got his ring but he never did. The Glove did not do his job in the finals and had a really hard time sharing the spotlight with the others. Phil said in this book that he would not coach if Kobe is still on the roster. I didn’t know they had that much consternation between the two of them. The book was a fun read because he wrote about some of the history trying to reign Kobe in, how he used psychologists on himself and recommended other players and one and how he used a friend, a Buddhist, that told him to focus on his breathing. Phil said “thanks” and went on his way. He was looking for something else not a breathing rec. It talked about his girlfriend and her father, Dr. Jerry Buss and the other coaches. I really appreciated all the insights about the team even through I did not like hearing that negative things about Kobe and how he could not play with Shaq. Now I see that Phil favored Shaq. This book was 304 pages and I’d give it a 3.5 stars out of 5. Go read it and talk to me about it.½

Sacred Hoops was another short book I finished. I often have multiple books open at the same time depending on what room I’m in. Phil Jackson, the head coach of my Lakers, wrote this book. At the time of this book he was the coach of the Bulls. An acquaintance of mine let me borrow this book because I’m a diehard Lakers fan. I found this book somewhat interesting but overall found it to be greatly wanting. I was interested in this book because he told me that Phil Jackson is a Christian Buddhist. Philosophy of religions if fun so I read through it. It is a short book around 225 ish pages. I wondered how he could be a Zen Christian and was hoping to get some insight into it. Unfortunately the answer was not really in this book.

Basically, this book was about Phil's Christian family background how he did not feel the spirit like others did and how his brother turned him on Zen Buddhism. It was interesting that he spent a lot of time with the Lakota Siouxs. Basically it traces how he was coached by various people, the use and honing of the triangle offense to keep his opponents guessing and opening up the floor to make better shots possible. I'm sorry but I'd only give this weak book 1.5 and being generous maybe a 2 stars out of 5. The only reason I'm rating it that high is because Jackson is a winner and had some interesting things to say about not being selfish but playing basketball as a team effort. I also appreciated is talking about Michael Jordan and how he focused on getting Jordan’s buy in and how he and Jordan observed each other at first, how Jackson became a player coach on his way to becoming the head coach and how he lost and won championships and some of his family background and the death of his father and his first and second wife history. I know I'm talking a lot but I'm going to bed soon and want to say something about this book. Some people might enjoy it but I didn't much like it if you haven’t got that yet. It might be worth one read but that's about it. I can’t wait to get rid of this book.½

Phil Jackson, the NBA's greatest coach, recalls the collapse of the Los Angeles Lakers dynasty. The Shaq-Kobe was once hailed as the next Jordan-Pippen duo, but Shaq's ego and the flase rape accusations aginst Kobe got in the way. A sad story to a great dynasty; however, the current Lakers (08-09 team) is much better.

Disclaimer: I am a Sacramento Kings season ticket holder. That noted, I admit that I bought The Last Season largely to enjoy reading about the demise of the Lakers. I was not disappointed.

Jackson writes this book in journal form and often skips days or even weeks at a time. He rambles and muses. The reader can not help but wonder how much editing was done after the fact. Regardless, it is like being a fly on Jackson's therapist's wall. It is an entertaining read even if not particularly news. Some re-runs are worth watching.

Jackson doesn't give up the dirt on Kobe and certainly not Shaq. He does mention weaknesses in his players and others, but he generally balances his criticism with a compliment. The cynic in me wonders what Jackson would write if he knew he would never coach again and could remain hidden in Montana for the rest of his life.

This book is an easy read. If you are a basketball fan, this book is fun. However, since the book is largely a rerun, I recommend waiting until the paper back edition comes out.

260/300
The last season is about a Phil Jackson and the Los Angles Lakers going through some tough times during the 2003 season. Some of those struggles were the arguments of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, which played a very big part in the book because of the fact on how it affected their playing game on the court and relationship with coach, Phil Jackson. This book was perfect to read, not only because it talked about basketball, but also because of the behind the scenes of what I was watching on T.V.
I can relate to this book in many ways. Some of those ways are the struggles that I go through in life. In The Last Season, one of the biggest struggles was the Kobe Bryant rape case. During this time Kobe went through a lot. I can relate to this because sometimes people blame me for something I did not do. I liked everything about the book and would not want anything left out of it because it wouldn't be the same. I recommend this book to people who like a good sports book with some critical moments in between it.

Not an extremely good book, but the man's got a lot of rings.

Lessons on leading a team of malcontent, spoiled players (or at least trying to).