Would MJ have won 6 rings without Phil Jackson?

[Finkelskyhook]

The better question is how many rings would Jordan have won without the Jordan Rules?

At least one less for sure.  No other player of that era would have gotten away with the flagrant pushoff on Bryon Russell in front of 2 officials.

 

Dude...cry more. Seriously.

That said, I'm not so sure MJ wins 6 titles without Phil. Like others have said, it's hard to say if Phil really is such a great coach since he always seemed to have not just a great player on his teams, but the best player in the NBA on his teams. None the less, I do think Phil should get credit.

Dudette, I ain't crying.  I had no team in the fight then.  We weren't good enough to compete.

I just watched.  Sometimes in amazement at Jordan's competitiveness and athletism.  Sometimes in amazement at what he got away with that no player of his era came close to getting away with.  The pushoffs, the hacking on defense, the extra steps, and the phantom foul calls.

My opinion is that on a level playing field, Jordan would have won 4 titles....Maybe 5.

But the playing field was far from level when Jordan was playing on it.

[syfy9]

Probably not.

You can't get mad at Jackson for winning with winning talent.

I agree, has there ever been a coach in NBA history that won a title with losing talent?

[BASS_THUMPER]

yes...

jordan made his team mates better not phil...

anyway you cant coach a player like jordan...you let em loose

[Eja117]

In this alternate universe where Phil Jackson isn't his coach if he's playing against Russell or Bird or Magic he wins a grand total of zero rings

[Eja117]

This is how great Phil Jackson is in relation to MJ


1998 finals.  Let's trade Jerry Sloan for Phil Jackson.   Who wins the series now?

1997 finals. Let's trade Jerry Sloan for Phil. Who wins now?

1996 finals. Let's trade George Karl for Phil. Who wins now?

1993 finals. Let's trade Paul Westphal for Phil. Now who wins?

1992 finals. Let's trade Rick Adelman for Phil. Who wins now?

1991 finals. Let's trade Mike Dunleavy for Phil. Now who wins?

So which series is the one where MJ loses?  There wasn't a single series that went to game 7.

How about the 2008 NBA finals where Doc coached the pants of the dunce? 4-2. Now trade coaches. Now who wins? How about where Doc was well in the process of doing it again till Perk went down hurt?  Most fortunate thing that could have happened to Phil cause he was going to lose again.

Most.....overrated.....coach.....in....any...sport...ever. Still and always.

[LilRip]

The better question is how many rings would Jordan have won without the Jordan Rules?

At least one less for sure.  No other player of that era would have gotten away with the flagrant pushoff on Bryon Russell in front of 2 officials.

How could he win less without the Jordan Rules? The Jordan Rules was the Pistons' defensive scheme against him, and he would rather have won more without that.

The "Jordan Rules" are the rules by which superstars receive special treatment by the refs in overlooking their fouls/violations while their defenders receive excessive fouls/violations.  It's not the name of the Pistons defensive scheme.

Example 1: Jordan drives to the hoop and a defender swipes at the ball (contact with Jordan is irrelevant) --> foul on the defender.
Example 2: Defender drives to the hoop on Jordan and he swipes the ball making contact with the player --> no foul on Jordan probably resulting in Jordan gaining possession of the ball. (with a subsequent fastbreak basket and another foul on the player trying to stop Jordan)
Those are the Jordan Rules which have been applied for every player Stern has appointed as a media-darling for the league since MJ's initial retirement (Shaq, Kobe, Bron, Wade, etc..)

those aren't the Jordan Rules. that's superstar treatment (like how Reggie Miller pushed off Jordan to get open for one of his signature 3's). the "Jordan Rules" is when the Pistons would beat up MJ on D.

[Adelaide Celt]

Most.....overrated.....coach.....in....any...sport...ever. Still and always.

 

So true.

[cman88]

Phil Jackson didnt just have "greaqt teams" he always had the best player in the game on his teams...when you have Michael Jordan or Kobe bryant(in his prime) on your team its not that hard to look great...

not that he's a bad coach, hes a good coach. but over-rated because of the talent granted to him. I mean, Erik Spoelstra got to the finals this year...and he's not a good coach at all

[Rondo_is_better]

Phil Jackson reminds me of my JV basketball coach freshman year of high school. Just an old guy who is half charming, half straight shooter, half total arrogant prick. His particular "hands barely on" approach, coupled with teams led by extremely strong leaders (read: controlling) like Kobe, Michael and Shaq have produced a wonderfully successful career born more out of circumstance, statistical anomaly, and serendipitous chemistry than any wizardry or "zen skill" on his part.

Red Auerbach:
brb building a franchise
brb hand-picking talent
brb managing large personalities and racial tension
brb pioneering training camp and other inventive, hyper-competitive mechanisms for gainingan advantage over the opponent
brb doing it all at once, by himself

[greenpride32]

Phil Jackson didnt just have "greaqt teams" he always had the best player in the game on his teams...when you have Michael Jordan or Kobe bryant(in his prime) on your team its not that hard to look great...

Well don't forget he had Shaq in his prime also. 

Not that the coach isn't important; but the amount of talent you have on the floor; you know the guys who have to go out and actually win the games has a lot more impact on the result than the guy drawing the X's and O's.  I remember an interview with Magic where he said something to the effect of "nobody listens to the coaches or follows their plays, when you get out there you just play". 

[Who]

Phil Jackson reminds me of my JV basketball coach freshman year of high school. Just an old guy who is half charming, half straight shooter, half total arrogant prick. His particular "hands barely on" approach, coupled with teams led by extremely strong leaders (read: controlling) like Kobe, Michael and Shaq have produced a wonderfully successful career born more out of circumstance, statistical anomaly, and serendipitous chemistry than any wizardry or "zen skill" on his part.

Red Auerbach:
brb building a franchise
brb hand-picking talent
brb managing large personalities and racial tension
brb pioneering training camp and other inventive, hyper-competitive mechanisms for gainingan advantage over the opponent
brb doing it all at once, by himself

brb?

What does that abbreviation stand for?

[revcummings]

I think one person already pointed out that if Jordan would have stayed in 94-95 instead of trying the Baseball thing, he would have one at least six if not more.

Honestly, I think Houston would have never had one if Jordan had stayed around. The dude was in his prime when he left for Baseball!

[Tai]

The better question is how many rings would Jordan have won without the Jordan Rules?

At least one less for sure.  No other player of that era would have gotten away with the flagrant pushoff on Bryon Russell in front of 2 officials.

 

Dude...cry more. Seriously.

That said, I'm not so sure MJ wins 6 titles without Phil. Like others have said, it's hard to say if Phil really is such a great coach since he always seemed to have not just a great player on his teams, but the best player in the NBA on his teams. None the less, I do think Phil should get credit.

Dudette, I ain't crying.  I had no team in the fight then.  We weren't good enough to compete.

I just watched.  Sometimes in amazement at Jordan's competitiveness and athletism.  Sometimes in amazement at what he got away with that no player of his era came close to getting away with.  The pushoffs, the hacking on defense, the extra steps, and the phantom foul calls.

My opinion is that on a level playing field, Jordan would have won 4 titles....Maybe 5.

But the playing field was far from level when Jordan was playing on it.

And why are you going off topic just to whine about the refs in Jordan's era? I don't care how you want to word it. Amazed. Surprised. Whatever. We are in this topic to discuss how many rings MJ would have won without Phil, or if he would have won 6. Instead, you're using it as a platform to rant about how the refs allegedly kissed MJ's you-know-what his whole career. I honestly don't get what's the point of that other than to bash MJ. Make another topic for that. Jeez.

[BballTim]

Phil Jackson didnt just have "greaqt teams" he always had the best player in the game on his teams...when you have Michael Jordan or Kobe bryant(in his prime) on your team its not that hard to look great...

  Shaq was the best player for most of those teams.

[tenn_smoothie]

I was really wondering about this for quite some time. Could Jordan have won as many championships as he did without one of the best coaches of all time? Could he have gotten past the Bad Boys and their Jordan Rules without the triangle offense? I was looking elsewhere and thought I'd ask you all your incite.

i do not consider Jackson even close to the greatest coach of all-time because he was such a calculating opportunist and refused to take a job that required any of the hard work of building and learning to win. he only took jobs with title-ready teams.


Jackson openly admitted as much this year when he talked about being offered the Cavs job during his hiatus from the Lakers during the mid-2000's when, surprise, the Lakers were struggling after losing Shaq. Jackson stated that he did not take the Cavs job at that time because Lebron was young and "they were two or three years away from winning a title." how can we respect someone with that type of attitude - the guy never built anything in his life - he just benefited from carefully picking his spots and inherited teams after another coach had done the heavy lifting.