Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

by Phil Jackson

  When Brian saw Shaq attacking Devean, he called out to him, “If you’d used that much energy blocking out under the boards, you would have gotten yourself a rebound and we probably would have won the game. So instead of taking it out on Devean, why don’t you take responsibility for where you came up short?” At that point, Shaq let Devean go and went after Brian, who tried to tackle him but ended up getting dragged around the locker room by Shaq until his knees were bleeding and the other players pulled him off.

  “Shaq was mad at me because I hurt his feelings,” says Brian. “But a couple days later, he came up to me and said, ‘You know, you were right. It was my bad. I shouldn’t have gone off like that.’”

  Kobe was also going through a difficult transition that season. During the previous spring, he’d fallen out with his family over his marriage to Vanessa Laine, a then-eighteen-year-old recent high school graduate. Kobe’s parents, Joe and Pam, who had been living with him in his Brentwood home, argued that he was too young to marry. But Kobe was eager to start his new life. “I do everything young,” he told reporters. Joe and Pam, who had been regulars at Lakers games, returned to Philadelphia but didn’t attend the championship finals that year in the family’s hometown. It wasn’t until two years later that Kobe and his parents reconciled. In the meantime he and Vanessa moved to a new house, a block away from her mother in Newport Beach, and had their first child, Natalia.

  In his rush to make it in the NBA, Kobe had missed out on college and some of the growing pains that go along with being out in the world for the first time. After breaking with his parents, he started to establish himself as his own man, sometimes in surprising ways. Kobe had always avoided clashes with other players, but during the 2001–02 season, he became belligerent at times. Once he got into an argument with Samaki Walker while traveling on the team bus, then suddenly took a pop at him. Samaki laughed it off, saying, “It was good to see the intensity.” Later, during a game in the Staples Center, Kobe reacted violently to Reggie Miller’s trash talk, balling his fist and chasing Miller around the court until they crashed into the scorer’s table. Kobe was suspended for two games.

  Kobe had a lot of pent-up rage inside, and I worried that he might do something he might regret someday. But Brian, who had become Kobe’s confidant and mentor, thought that these clashes were signs that Kobe was “branching out into manhood and establishing what he was going to stand for and what he wasn’t.” Watching Kobe, whom I had named cocaptain that year, go through these growing pains, says Brian, “you could see that he was obviously maturing, becoming more of a good teammate and one of the guys. There were times when he would still go off and say things, but for the most part he was much more comfortable in his own skin and a lot more confident about being who he is.”

  —

  Improvising was the only way we could get through the 2001–02 season. Nothing that happened followed any pattern I’d seen before. We took off on a 16-1 run, the best start in franchise history, and the media began whispering that it looked like we could break the Bulls’ 72-10 season record. That didn’t last long. In December we sank into a puzzling lethargy that lasted through mid-February. Even though we held our own with our toughest rivals, we lost six times during that period to last-place teams, including twice to the rebuilding Bulls. We leveled off somewhat after that, but we were never able to flip that illusory switch everybody was talking about.

  I knew this team was capable of playing much better basketball. The trick was trying to hold body, mind, and spirit together until we got to the playoffs. One of my biggest disappointments was figuring out how to get the most out of Mitch Richmond. Mitch was a terrific scorer who’d averaged 22.1 points coming into the season, but he had a difficult time adapting to the triangle offense. He also wasn’t adept at jumping in and out of games off the bench because he needed a lot of time to warm up his legs. Fortunately, Shaw was able to fill in for Mitch as the third guard at the end of the season. Because the bench wasn’t that strong, we had to rely heavily on the starters to play extra minutes, and the cracks were beginning to show. To prevent the starters from getting worn out too early, I decided to lighten up on the team during the final stretch. As a result, we entered the playoffs tied for second place in the Western Conference and still searching for our mojo.

  We swept Portland in the first round, but we didn’t look impressive doing it. It wasn’t until we lost at home to the Spurs in the second game of the Western Conference semifinals, tying the series at 1–1, that we woke up and started playing like champions.

  Shaq was suffering. To add to his toe problems, he’d sliced the forefinger of his shooting hand in game 1 and sprained his left ankle in game 2. Still, I thought he needed to be more aggressive and told him so. When reporters questioned me about him before game 3 in San Antonio, I said, “I had a heated conversation with Shaq, actually, about getting actively involved in chasing the ball down. . . . He said, basically, his toe [hurts].” Shaq had been avoiding the media that week, but when a reporter pressed him for a comment, he said, “Ask Phil, he knows every other fucking thing.”

  But Shaq came through in the game the way I expected. He scored 22 points despite his torn finger and pulled down 15 rebounds despite his troublesome feet. He also helped contain the Spurs’ biggest threat, Tim Duncan, who missed 17 of 26 shots from the field.

  Although Shaq rallied, this was Kobe’s moment. With 6:28 left and the Lakers ahead, 81–80, Kobe scored 7 points in an 11–2 run that sealed the win. Afterward he sounded as if he’d just returned from a meditation workshop. “I was more centered and focused on all the stuff around me,” he said. “If you get too emotionally wrapped up in a game, you overlook the little details. You have to step outside the circle.”

  That game showed me just how good this team could be in the fourth quarter. In game 4, we were behind by 10 points with 4:55 left, and Kobe came alive again, hitting 2 three-pointers, then making a rebound and put-back in the last 5.1 seconds to put the game away, 87–85. Two nights later we went on a 10–4 run in the final minutes to win the series, 4–1. This team was finally finding its identity as one of the great closers in the game. It was not a moment too soon.

  —

  The fans in Sacramento—home to our opponents in the Western Conference finals—loved to hate the Lakers. Ever since I’d joked a few years earlier that the state capital was a semicivilized cow town, the fans had been trying to get back at me, clanging cowbells and screaming obscenities behind our bench, among other diversionary tactics. Of course, it didn’t help that we had eliminated the Kings from the playoffs for the past two years.

  But this time the team’s faithful had reason to be optimistic. Their boys had finished the season with the best record in the league (61-21) and had home-court advantage through the playoffs. The Kings were one of the best shooting teams I’ve ever seen. In addition to All-Star power forward Chris Webber, the team had a balanced lineup of shooters who could hurt you from all directions, including Vlade Divac, Predrag Stojakovic, Doug Christie, and Hedo Turkoglu, plus a quick new point guard, Mike Bibby, who was fearless when it came to penetrating defenses and putting up clutch shots.

  We won the first game in Sacramento, setting a record for consecutive playoff wins on the road (12). But the Kings struck back in game 2, taking advantage of Kobe, who was recovering from an attack of food poisoning. The big surprise came in game 3, which the Kings won handily behind Bibby and Webber, who combined for 50 points. Unfazed, Kobe joked with reporters after the game, “Well, we’re not bored now.”

  The miracle shot happened in game 4. It looked bleak in the first half, when we fell behind by 20 points and couldn’t get our offense moving. But we shifted the momentum in the second half, slowing down their fast-paced offense and eating away at their lead. With eleven seconds left, we had narrowed the lead to 2. Kobe drove to the basket and missed. Shaq grabbed the rebound and also missed. Kings center Vlade Divac
batted the ball away and it ended up in the hands of Robert Horry, who was standing alone at the three-point line. As if everything were scripted, he squared up, released his shot, and watched it drop perfectly as the buzzer sounded. Lakers 100, Kings 99.

  This was vintage Robert Horry, the kind of shot that young boys dream about. But we still had a long way to go before we could silence the cowbells. The Kings roared back and took game 5 on their home court, going ahead 3–2 in the seven-game series. But the Lakers didn’t panic. At 2:30 A.M. on the morning of game 6, Kobe phoned his new best friend, Shaq, and told him, “Big fella, need you tomorrow. We’ll make history.” Shaq was still up, of course, mulling the upcoming game, and they revved each other up. “Facing elimination, this is nothing for us,” Kobe later told reporters. “He felt the same way I did.”

  Shaq was unstoppable that night. He scored 41 points with 17 rebounds and completely dominated in the paint. The Kings threw everybody they could at him, and in the closing minutes both Divac and Scot Pollard fouled out, and all they had left was backup center Lawrence Funderburke, who was helpless against Shaq’s inside moves. “You have to foul me to stop me—period,” Shaq said later. Kobe was also on fire, scoring 31 points, including four critical free throws in the final seconds that nailed down the victory, 106–100.

  The following Sunday a welcoming committee of Kings fans bared their butts as our bus arrived at Arco Arena for game 7. The players laughed. If nothing else, the prank helped take some of the edge off what may have been the toughest game they’d ever faced. This was an excellent road team, but playing a seventh game on an opponent’s court is the most drop-dead-challenging test. The last time I had been in this predicament was as a player in 1973 when we had to beat the Celtics in a seventh game in Boston to win the Eastern Conference finals. That was one of the most unnerving—and exhilarating—moments of my career.

  The Lakers were remarkably calm. Earlier that day we had meditated together at the hotel, and I’d been pleasantly surprised to see that everyone was seated and ready to go when I walked into the room. As we sat in silence, I could sense that the players were pulling themselves together, preparing mentally for the showdown that awaited them. These men had been through a lot together and knew instinctively that their connection with one another would be the force to dispel anxiety as the pressure mounted during the game.

  They were right. This wasn’t just a basketball game; it was a grueling marathon that lasted more than three hours. But in the end, it was the Lakers’ collective composure that won the day. The lead changed seventeen times, and the game went into overtime when Bibby made two free throws to tie the score at 100, and Shaq missed a fourteen-footer at the buzzer. It was a brutal test of wills, and, as Fish told Bill Plaschke, we had to dig “deeper than we’ve ever dug before.”

  I was more animated than usual because I wanted to keep the players focused. Kobe said he thought the Kings were playing better basketball than we were. But we scrambled harder, which paid off in the final minutes of the game. Fox pulled down a playoff career record of 14 rebounds, and Horry grabbed 12 more. Meanwhile, the Kings were visibly shaken. Normally coolheaded, they misfired on 14 of their 30 free throws, while we hit all but 6 of our 33. And during the final two minutes of overtime, they squandered a 2-point lead by missing 5 shots in a row and turning over the ball twice.

  The closeout was a group effort. Shaq hit a short jumper, then nailed two free throws, while Fish and Kobe each hit two from the line to put the game out of reach. Afterward the players were so weary they could barely celebrate, but they weren’t surprised by the outcome. “We’ve been playing together for five years,” said Horry. “If we don’t understand what to do by now, something’s wrong.”

  Shaq, who played a grueling fifty-one minutes, seemed less buoyant than usual after the game. But as our bus was pulling out of the parking lot, he spotted a crowd of Sacramento fans cursing at us and, lowering his pants, decided to give them a fond farewell, Sacramento style. One of our guys called it “a full moon rising.”

  In my mind that was the title game, but we still had the championship finals to get through. Our opponent, the New Jersey Nets, had one of the best point guards in the game, Jason Kidd, and an impressive power forward, Kenyon Martin, but they didn’t have an answer for Shaq. They tried to have rookie Jason Collins cover him, but Shaq walked all over him, averaging 36 points en route to his third straight finals MVP award. Riding on Shaq’s shoulders, we swept the Nets and became the first Lakers team to win three rings in a row since the club moved from Minneapolis in the early sixties. Now we could legitimately call ourselves a dynasty.

  With this victory, I tied Red Auerbach’s record for most championship titles won: nine. The media made a big deal about this, especially after Auerbach said it was hard to consider me a great coach because I’d never built a team or trained young players. I said that I was dedicating the victory to my mentor, Red Holzman, who would have been thrilled to see me tie his archrival, had he still been alive.

  What mattered more to me, though, was what had happened to the team. When I started with the Lakers I thought we could accomplish great things if we could get to the point where the players trusted one another enough to commit to something larger than themselves. Midway through that long, hard season, when we were being embarrassed by the Memphis Grizzlies, I’m not sure I would have bet money on our chance of making history. But in the final hour, when it really mattered, the players dug deep and formed themselves into a championship team built on trust.

  The player who understood this best—surprisingly—was Kobe Bryant. Not long before, he would have scoffed at the idea. But he had grown, and the team had grown with him. “We’ve been through so many battles,” he said, “the trust naturally grows. The more wars you fight together the more you understand the people you’re in battle with.”

  One breath. One mind. One spirit.

  18

  THE WISDOM OF ANGER

  Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

  THE BUDDHA

  It was supposed to be a peaceful summer. As I tooled through the Rockies on my motorcycle in late June, I was glad to put the 2002–03 season behind me. It had been a tough year, marred by a lot of injuries—from Shaq’s toe to Kobe’s knee to Rick Fox’s foot. We’d limped into the playoffs and barely survived a grueling first-round series against the Timberwolves. The capper, injurywise, for me took place during the semis against the San Antonio Spurs. That’s when I learned that one of my coronary arteries was 90 percent blocked and I required an emergency angioplasty. As it turned out, the heart procedure had a much happier ending than the contest with the Spurs. For the first time in my four years with the Lakers we didn’t even make it to the Western Conference finals, let alone capture a ring.

  Yes, I was more than ready to let go of that season. Since my surgery I’d been feeling better than I had in years, and I welcomed the chance to contemplate the next chapter as I sailed across the mountains. Although the team had lost Robert Horry to the Spurs in the off-season, we’d acquired Gary Payton and future Hall of Famer Karl Malone. Malone was the quintessential power forward who could score 20-plus points and get 8 to 10 rebounds per game, while plugging up the lane with his sizable body. Payton was not only one of the best point guards in the league but also a tenacious defender (hence his nickname, “the Glove”) who I hoped would slow down some of the league’s pesky small guards. I had some concerns about how to mesh these big talents with Shaq and Kobe without creating a lot of bruised egos. Still, this was a good problem, and I was jazzed.

  I took my time riding my BMW from L.A. across Arizona, up through Four Corners and into Durango, Colorado, where I caught up with a friend and a cousin. After crossing the breathtaking mountain pass into Ouray, my next stop was Eagle, Colorado, a small town near Vail. I was there to pick up a buddy fr
om high school—we were heading to our fortieth reunion in Williston, North Dakota. When we left I had no idea that in a few days Eagle would make headlines and embroil me in a nightmare of pain and misinformation.

  My friend and I had passed through Deadwood, South Dakota, and had just checked into a motel in my hometown of Williston when I got the phone call.

  —

  It was Mitch Kupchak calling to tell me that Kobe had been arrested in Eagle for alleged sexual assault. Without informing me or anyone else on our staff, Kobe had scheduled knee surgery with a specialist in Vail. Apparently, the night before the operation he had invited a nineteen-year-old woman to his hotel room in nearby Edwards for what he termed “consensual” sex. The following day the woman went to the police claiming that she’d been forcibly raped.

  Watching the story unfold over the next few weeks, it was hard to assess what had actually happened. I had difficulty believing that Kobe was capable of committing such an act, and the evidence seemed superficial at best. On July 18, the day he was formally charged, he held a news conference with his wife, Vanessa, by his side. Kobe vehemently denied raping his accuser but admitted tearfully to having had an adulterous sexual encounter with her.

  I was not without sympathy for Kobe and tried to reach him, without success, after I heard the news. This was a lot to handle for a young man who had just turned twenty-four—especially someone who often boasted to his teammates that he planned to be monogamous for life. Now he was being charged with a crime that could put him behind bars for years. What’s more, Kobe had always been meticulous about his public image, and suddenly he was fodder for the tabloid media and late-night comedians.