Phil Jackson Quotes

The best part of basketball, for those people on the inside, is the bus going to the airport after you've won a game on an opponent's floor. It's been a very tough battle. And preferably, in the playoffs. And that feeling that you have, together as a group, having gone to an opponent's floor and won a very good victory, is as about as high as you can get.

Make your work your play and your play your work.

The ideal way to win a championship is step by step.

A coach's main job is to reawaken a spirit in which the players can blend together effortlessly.

Tomorrow gives a beck'ning hand
I turn my face away; I'll not invite her to my home
I only love Today.

Your problems never cease. They just change.

Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We.

Approach the game with no preset agendas and you'll probably come away surprised at your overall efforts.

When I was young, I was dedicated to become a minister - my brothers and I were formally brought in front of the congregation in a dedication ceremony, where we were dedicated to the future service of God.

You're only a success for the moment that you complete a successful act.

You go in the weight room and you lift weights and you do all these things to strengthen your body. This is strengthening your mind. When you can stay focused and you can use that focus to always come back with your breath to center yourself, so that you're kind of floating in the moment, in the spirit.

My parents were, had a marriage of passion, and the passion was about their religious beliefs. They were both immigrant families that - well, my father's family came as Puritans to Massachusetts.

He practiced against Kobe all of last year, so obviously it was sweet revenge for him. We deserved that. We didn't know who he was, we gave him up to Charlotte, we had no idea how good a player he was.

I think the most rewarding part of the job, and I think most coaches would say it, is practice. If you have it, a very good practice in which you have 12 guys participate, and they can really get something out of it, lose themselves in practice.

Winning is about moving into the unknown and creating something new.

Everybody has an opportunity to play a role, a playmaking role, so it makes it harder to coach. It takes a little more time.

Yes, victory is sweet, but it doesn't necessarily make life any easier the next season or even the next day.

No one plays this or any game perfectly. It's the guy who recovers from his mistakes who wins.

My father was the superintendent of the churches in the state of Montana. He was content in his beliefs. He befit the term 'true Christian.' He would turn the other cheek. He was truly a man of peace.

I replaced three joints in my hips and one in my knee. I'm hoping that other knee doesn't have to be done. It's one of the toughest things to overcome.

I probably would have no capability of absorbing a 60-defeat season as a coach. It would be a foreign experience. My whole career, even as a player, has been on winning basketball clubs and it just seems to have been a part of the make-up of what's been given me. That's what I've been given and that's what I've had to deal with. Some people can make fun of it or some people can have a good time with it, or some people can resent it. It's just what it is.

I'm not going to coach again. I've done my coaching, and I think I can put that aside.

Coaching is about, "How do I get people to play at their peak level?" It is a spiritual quest. And if it's not that, you don't have a challenge, you don't have a mission. Forming a brotherhood and trying to move it forward - that's what coaching is.

I will have Derek Fisher wear all 5 of his rings the first time he comes in to talk to Carmelo.

Basketball, unlike football with its prescribed routes, is an improvisational game, similar to jazz. If someone drops a note, someone else must step into the vacuum and drive the beat that sustains the team.

Basketball is a simple game. Your goal is penetration, get the ball close to the basket, and there are three ways to do that. Pass, dribble and offensive rebound.

I played hockey in North Dakota growing up and watch a lot of that.

Coaching is salesmanship. Coaching is winning players over and convincing them they have to play together. It takes a team conviction to play together to make things work.

The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome. The ride is a lot more fun that way.

The winter's a little bit daunting in Montana.

The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.

In basketball - as in life - true joy comes from being fully present in each and every moment, not just when things are going your way.

My father was a man who didn't consider himself learned. He was a man who liked to be a farmer. He enjoyed his dairy farm and felt the calling. So there was a dedication. I was dedicated as a child to the service of God, and so there was this continual centering of a greater purpose than your own.

Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.

Basketball is sharing.

Once you've done the mental work, there comes a point you have to throw yourself into the action and put your heart on the line. That means not only being brave, but being compassionate towards yourself, your teammates and your opponents.

You can't force your will on people. If you want them to act differently, you need to inspire them to change themselves

The greatest carver does the least cutting. LAO-TZU

I won't coach this team next year if he is still here. He won't listen to anyone. I've had it with this kid.

Remember, Team, surrender the me for the we.

If you have a clear mind ... you won't have to search for direction. Direction will come to you.

My philosophy is that you don't motivate players with speeches; you have motivated players that you draft. That's where they come in, and those are the guys that are competitive. You can not teach competitiveness.

Leadership is not about forcing your will on others. It's about mastering the art of letting go.

But trying to eliminate anger never works. The more you try to suppress it, the more likely it is to erupt later in a more virulent form. A better approach is to become as intimate as possible with how anger works on your mind and body so that you can transform its underlying energy into something productive.

There's a lot of chatter in basketball and, rightfully, you want players to be talking to each other ... But sometimes in practice, it gets too verbose ... so I tried to take things out of the ordinary and make them special so they'd understand the difference.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

What moves me is watching young men bond together and tap into the magic that arises when they focus with their whole heart and soul on something greater than themselves. Once you've experienced that, it's something you never forget.

The NBA has made a real issue about really making these superstars the premium that everybody wants to go to. That's their calling card and their marketing tool. But the coaches at the other end of the sphere are trying to make everybody on the team, even nine, 10, 11, 12, just as important, and have a real role that's meaningful.

The bigger your head, the easier to fill your shoes.

You have to be able to psychologically help your players, support-wise, be in touch with them, so I think managing people is very important.

My first act after being named head coach of the Bulls was to formulate a vision for the team. I had to take into account not only what I wanted to achieve, but how I was going to get there.

I think there's something about wanting to stand in the spotlight. I think the ball is a spotlight, for example, and I think they want to stand in that. I a lot of times see - LeBron is a guy that vacillates between wanting to do that and then wanting to get somebody else involved.

I'm not trying to find answers anymore. I'm trying to live what I know.

Love is the force that ignites the spirit and binds teams together.

In their groundbreaking book, Tribal Leadership, management consultants Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright lay out the five stages of tribal development, which they formulated after conducting extensive research on small to midsize organizations.

I'm a patient person. I think that's one thing that I feel comfortable I can deal with - the downfall and the errors, as long as I see progress and people trying.

It takes a number of critical factors to win an NBA championship, including the right mix of talent, creativity, intelligence, toughness, and of course, luck. But if a team doesn't have the most essential ingredient - love - none of those other factors matter.

The strength of the team lies within the individual. And the strength of the individual lies within the team

The sign of a great player is how much he elevates his colleagues' performance.

I always tell the players, "We are in the business that's very much like a marathon race only we're gonna be doing it for 260-something days or so." And the race is something you get ready to do. There's gonna be some trial inside of there, but you put yourself through it because ultimately it brings a lot of meaning to your life, it gives a lot of energy to what you're doing.