Legendary coach Vince Lombardi once stated that “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Although Charlie Sheen would agree and most sports are predicated on this adage, it appears that in the art of coaching even those with the most impressive of track records may be met with forceful skepticism that their merits do not warrant an
anointment of greatness. Phil Jackson, the “Zen Master” himself, has developed an impeccable resume of winning throughout his twenty years as a head coach for the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers. Winning eleven championships during this two decade time period, this means that Jackson has won an NBA Title in an incredible fifty-five percent of the seasons that he has been a head coach. To put this in perspective, when coaching an NBA team, Phil Jackson is roughly 10 percent more likely to win a championship that year than Ben Wallace is to make a free throw. Despite this unparalleled success, Jackson (right) has not gone without his fair share of criticism. Blessed with the commonly accepted (although Bill Russell should be) greatest player of all-time for his first six-pack of championships, Jackson followed up this first act by fortuitously stumbling upon two arguably top ten players of all-time enabling him to win five more rings and reach his currently dauntingly impressive eleven championship rings. There is no doubt that this string of luck is quite possibly the greatest in all of the history of coaching. But how great of a coach was Jackson? Hit the jump to take a look.
