Lakers get their Phil his record 10th title

The National Basketball Association is a players league, so they say. It is the league of men who need no last name - Kobe, LeBron and so on. Coaching is more of a negotiation at this level, an attempt to reach peace with the players while keeping things moving toward a common goal.

So perhaps it is fitting that the coach of the NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers has come to be known simply as Phil. He stands alone among those negotiators of the sideline following Sunday's 99-86 victory over the Orlando Magic, a win that gave Jackson his 10th NBA title as a head coach - one more than another iconic one-name man known as Red, as in Auerbach.

Jackson won six of his championships in Chicago with Michael Jordan, and this was his fourth with the Lakers, where he has Kobe Bryant. The man has been blessed. As Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy pointed out, though, having talent is not the same as doing something with it - and that's where Jackson excels.

"I don't know of a team that has ever won it once that doesn't have great players," Van Gundy said. "I mean, tell me the team that didn't have great players that won a championship. I'm unaware.

"And yeah, he has had great players, but the guy wins all the time. If you have Kobe and all those guys and you're losing, OK, maybe they can talk about it. But the guy is winning all the time. You can't give him short shrift. I don't know Phil Jackson at all - you guys [media] know him better than I do. But damn, you look at the guy's record. It's undeniable."

Brings them together

The negotiation starts with knowing how much to push and how much to let talent express itself, and Jackson understands how to do that. There was talk of Bryant's leadership on the floor and even the sidelines this season, but that happened naturally - in its proper time. Only then did Jackson really let Bryant loose to be a leader.

Jackson told a story of a teaching moment with young Kobe, early in his playing career.

"We had a game in Toronto, and he had gotten hooked up with Vince Carter in the middle of the fourth quarter, and they kind of exchanged baskets, and I thought it took our team out of their team play. The game was much harder than it should have been," Jackson said.

"So I talked to him a little bit about leadership and the quality and his ability to be a leader, and he said, 'I'm ready to be a captain right now,' and I said, "but no one is ready to follow you."

The perfect comment at the proper time, delivered directly with unmistakable precision - and always with the larger picture of championships in mind.

"I think it's his ability to bring people together," Bryant said. "That's the biggest thing that he does so well is he continues to coach the group, continues to coach unity and chemistry and togetherness, and that's the biggest thing, because when you're together, you can with stand adversity. If you're not, you can easily break apart and become a team of individuals."

When the Lakers lost Game 3 in Orlando after Kobe missed key free throws and had a turnover late in the game, Jackson almost seemed bemused in his postgame presence. It was almost strange in a way - certainly this is not to suggest he was pleased about losing or found any humor in what had happened. But his look spoke to a larger confidence in himself and his team, and we saw how it all played out over the last two games.

And now Jackson stands at the top of his profession.

"He's very excited about it, absolutely. Extremely excited about it. You can tell. You can see it in his eyes how ecstatic he is," Bryant said.

"It's been a long time since he had a champagne bath, and I knew that, so I made sure he became part of our circle and we got him pretty good. He took his glasses off, threw his head back and soaked it all in because this is a special time, and for us to be the team that got him that historic 10th championship is special for us."

'It's incomprehensible'

Great coaches seem to have a special arrogance, and I mean that in a good way. Auerbach used to light that cigar on the bench when victory was assured, and don't think that didn't drive opponents and their fans just slightly insane.

Jackson isn't as brassy; just the opposite, really. He has an intellectual aloofness that suggests he just knows a whole lot more about what's going on than you or anyone else, which also has the benefit of being true. In a players league, Jackson's coaching makes the difference between a challenger and a champion.

"I guess the best way to sum it up would just be that Phil's belief in his players I think far outweighs any other coach that I've played for in terms of his willingness to allow the players to be players and make the plays," Lakers guard Derek Fisher said.

"... I don't know if there are a lot of coaches out there, if any, that trust that he and his staff have done the things in practice every day all season that when the pressure is at its highest point, regardless of who he puts in the game, they're going to get the job done. I think that's what separates him from everybody."

Someone asked Van Gundy whether it is now fair to call Jackson the greatest coach in NBA history. He didn't hesitate.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Hey, listen, some of the stuff is almost incomprehensible, OK? I think if I'm right, the guy has won 51 playoff series now. Check your record book and see how many coaches have even won 50 playoff games. It's fewer than 20, and the guy has won 51 playoff series. It's incomprehensible."