Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

by Phil Jackson

  The two men relate to their bodies differently as well. Trainer Chip Schaefer, who worked extensively with both players, says that Kobe treats his body like a finely tuned European sports car, while Michael was less regimented in his behavior and given to indulging his taste for good cigars and fine wine. Still, to this day Schaefer marvels at how graceful Michael was as he moved up the floor. “What I do for a living is all about athletic movement, and I’ve never seen anybody else move like that,” he says. “The only word for it is beautiful.”

  The differences between Michael’s and Kobe’s shooting styles are also pronounced. Michael was a more accurate shooter than Kobe. He averaged nearly 50 percent from the field during his career—an extraordinary figure—and was often in the 53 percent to 54 percent range during his prime. Kobe averages a respectable 45 percent, but his hot streaks tend to go longer than Michael’s did. Jordan was also more naturally inclined to let the game come to him and not overplay his hand, whereas Kobe tends to force the action, especially when the game isn’t going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns. Michael, on the other hand, would shift his attention to defense or passing or setting screens to help the team win the game.

  No question, Michael was a tougher, more intimidating defender. He could break through virtually any screen and shut down almost any player with his intense, laser-focused style of defense. Kobe has learned a lot from studying Michael’s tricks, and we often used him as our secret weapon on defense when we needed to turn the direction of a game. In general, Kobe tends to rely more heavily on his flexibility and craftiness, but he takes a lot of gambles on defense and sometimes pays the price.

  On a personal level, Michael was more charismatic and gregarious than Kobe. He loved being with his teammates and security guards, playing cards, smoking cigars, and joking around. Kobe is different. He was reserved as a teenager, in part because he was younger than the other players and hadn’t been able to develop his social skills in college. When Kobe joined the Lakers, he avoided fraternizing with his teammates. But his inclination to keep to himself shifted as he grew older. Increasingly, Kobe put more energy into getting to know the other players, especially when the team was on the road. During our second series of championships, he became the life of the party.

  Both Michael and Kobe have impressive basketball IQs, but I wouldn’t call either of them “intellectual” in the conventional sense of the word. Michael attended the University of North Carolina and is gifted at math, but he didn’t show much interest in the books I gave him to read while I was his coach. Nor did Kobe, for that matter, though now he picks my brain regularly for book suggestions, especially ones about leadership. Kobe could have attended any college he wanted, but he skipped that step because he was in too much of a hurry to conquer the NBA. Still, he must have wondered whether he made the right choice, because in the summer of 1997 he strapped on a backpack and took a course in advanced Italian at UCLA.

  One of the biggest differences between the two stars from my perspective was Michael’s superior skills as a leader. Though at times he could be hard on his teammates, Michael was masterful at controlling the emotional climate of the team with the power of his presence. Once he bought into the triangle, he knew instinctively how to get the players on board to make it work.

  Kobe had a long way to go before he could make that claim. He talked a good game, but he’d yet to experience the cold truth of leadership in his bones, as Michael had. Soon that too would begin to change.

  —

  Midway through the 2005–06 season, the players began to feel comfortable playing within the system, and they were starting to win games—even when Kobe wasn’t breaking any records. I was thrilled to see the team progress faster than expected. We finished the regular season with an 11-3 run and rolled into the playoffs with a 45-37 record, an eleven-game bump over the previous season.

  The momentum kept building, and we sailed to an unexpected 3–1 lead in the first round over the division-leading Phoenix Suns. Our game plan was to have Kobe draw double-teams, then feed Kwame and Lamar down low, a strategy that seemed to be working. Our come-from-behind win in game 4 was remarkable. With 0.7 seconds left in regulation, aided by a key steal by Smush, Kobe tossed up a baseline shot to tie the game, then hit a fallaway seventeen-footer with 0.2 seconds remaining for the win in overtime. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had,” he said after the game. “Because this is us. This is us, the entire team, enjoying the moment with the entire city of Los Angeles.”

  We didn’t celebrate for long. Hours before game 5 we learned that Kwame was being investigated for alleged sexual assault in L.A. The charges were eventually dropped, but the reports distracted the players and kept us from putting the series away in game 5. Then the momentum shifted in the Suns’ favor. In game 6 Smush was increasingly reluctant to shoot, so Kobe encouraged him to focus on putting pressure on point guard Steve Nash defensively and not to worry about scoring. Still, despite a heroic 50-point performance by Kobe, we went down in overtime. After the game Smush fell apart emotionally, having scored just 5 points on 12 shots. And the team headed back to Phoenix to face the Suns in game 7 on their home turf. It wasn’t much of a contest. At the half I told Kobe to revert to our original strategy and feed Lamar and Kwame in the post. So he dialed his game back and took only 3 shots in the second half. Unfortunately, Lamar and Kwame were missing in action and scored a combined total of 20 points, despite endless opportunities. As the game devolved into a 121–90 rout, the Lakers’ worst loss ever in a game 7, I was reminded of how important character is when it comes to winning big games. What this team needed was more heart.

  Not only did the team have some weaknesses, but so did I—a serious hip problem. I had hip replacement surgery just before the start of our 2006–07 training camp. This restricted my ability to move up and down the floor to monitor each player’s performance during practice, and I had to learn to coach games from a specially designed chair. Interestingly, though I worried that my limited mobility might diminish my authority, just the opposite occurred. I learned to be forceful without being overbearing—further lessons in the school of less is more.

  The 2006–07 season started with a flourish, but things got rocky in the second half when several players—including Lamar, Kwame, and Luke Walton—were down with injuries. The lineup got so thin at one point that I had to use six-five guard Aaron McKie as our power forward and Andrew Bynum took over at center. In February the team went into free fall, losing thirteen out of sixteen games in a single stretch. By mid-March Kobe was fed up and took matters into his own hands. Which worked for about two weeks. He scored 50-plus points in five of seven games and we won all but two. However, the other players complained about never seeing the ball, and I asked Kobe to back off.

  Usually I tried to work the tail end of a season so that the team peaked going into the playoffs. But there was no hope of that happening this time. The team’s chemistry was shot, and we’d run out of magic tricks. We ended the season with a 4-8 run and I finally gave up on Smush, replacing him with rookie Jordan Farmar, who was quicker and more reliable at covering fleet-footed guards.

  But we needed a lot more than speed to keep pace with Phoenix in the first round. If anything, the Suns were an even stronger team that year. They’d won the Pacific Division title three years in a row and had the best point guard in the business, Nash, who had previously won two straight MVP awards. The Suns certainly didn’t lack confidence. Before game 1, the Los Angeles Times ran a story that included an excerpt from Sports Illustrated writer Jack McCallum’s book :07 Seconds or Less, in which Suns coach Mike D’Antoni critiqued several of our players’ defensive flaws. “Kwame is awful,” he said. “Odom’s a very average defender. Vujacic can’t guard anybody. And Bryant in the open floor takes chances that aren’t good.”

  I didn’t agree with Mike’s assessment, but I was impressed by the Suns
’ level of chutzpah going into the series. Still, I thought we could surprise them again, if only we could stay focused.

  That turned out to be a big “if.” Throughout the series I showed the players clips of the movie Hustle & Flow, because, in my opinion, they needed more of both to outmaneuver the Suns. Obviously, they didn’t get the message. The team sleepwalked through the first two games in Phoenix, then came alive to win in game 3 in L.A., only to fall back into a doze and lose the series, 4–1. I was so frustrated by the team’s low energy in the decisive game 4 that I threw a mock fit and sent everyone home early from practice the next day. But lack of hustle (not to mention flow) was only part of the problem. We needed a blast of more seasoned talent to turn this team into a viable contender. Some of the young players I’d hoped would evolve into champions just couldn’t hold their own in the clutch.

  I wasn’t the only one losing patience. Kobe was furious that the team hadn’t made any significant personnel moves since trading Shaq to Miami. After game 5, he told reporters he was tired of being “a one-man show,” scoring 50 points a game and losing. “I’m not with that,” he said. “I’m about winning. I want to win championships and win them now. So, [the Lakers] have some decisions to make.”

  It wasn’t an empty threat. After the playoffs he asked me how much progress we were making to bring in new talent. I told him we had talked about free agents and were considering players who might be available, but so far no deals had been made. “I guess I’m going to have to do something about that,” he said.

  A few weeks later, enraged by a story in the Los Angeles Times by Mark Heisler in which a “Laker insider” claimed that Kobe was responsible for the post-Shaq mess, Kobe made his displeasure public in a radio interview with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. He criticized Dr. Buss for not being up front with him about the direction he wanted to take the team and demanded to be traded. Later, when speaking to other reporters, Kobe confirmed his desire to move on and said that he’d be willing to waive the no-trade clause in his contract to make that happen. In fact, during a training session that off-season for the 2008 Olympic team, he gave reporters no indication of whether or not he’d be suiting up in purple and gold when training camp rolled around in October.

  There was one strong trade possibility in the offing that had the potential to get Kobe to change his mind and stay. That was with Minnesota for center Kevin Garnett. My hope was that Garnett would be a good partner for Kobe and that his addition to the lineup would help calm Kobe down and motivate him to recommit to the team. What’s more, bringing Garnett on board could set us up for another solid championship run. But the trade fell apart at the last minute when Boston made an offer that Minnesota and Garnett found more attractive. Years later Garnett admitted that he wasn’t in favor of the L.A. deal, in large part because of Kobe’s dissatisfaction with the team.

  None of us was thrilled by the prospect of trading Kobe. It’s almost impossible to get equal value when you trade a player of his stature. The best deal you can hope for is one that gets you two solid starters and maybe a good draft pick, but not a comparable star. Nevertheless, Dr. Buss met up with Kobe in Barcelona over the summer and agreed to entertain trade offers from other teams as long as Kobe stopped mouthing off about it in the media. After a month or two without any progress, Kobe and his agent requested permission to put together a deal themselves and had several conversations with the Chicago Bulls, but nothing ever came of those efforts.

  Right before the start of the 2007–08 season, Dr. Buss, Jim Buss, Mitch Kupchak, and I held several meetings with Kobe and his agent to discuss possible trades. None of them made any sense from a business perspective, so Dr. Buss asked Kobe to hang in there while we waited for better offers to emerge. Explaining his rationale, he told Kobe, “If I had a diamond of great value—say four carats—would I give it up for four diamonds of one carat each? No, there is no equal value we can get from a trade that would match what you bring to the team.”

  I granted Kobe a few days off from practice to mull over his options. I wasn’t unsympathetic to his dilemma, even though I still believed we could turn the Lakers around. No question, losing Kobe would be a blow to the organization and to me personally. Kobe and I had been through tough times together, and during the past two seasons we’d started to forge a stronger relationship.

  The will-he-or-won’t-he question hung over the team like a thick band of clouds, and the rest of the players were distressed by all the uncertainty. I counseled them not to worry because Kobe’s decision was out of our hands. All we could do was rededicate ourselves to the team and prepare for the upcoming season. We needed to be ready for whatever happened, with Kobe or without him.

  As with everything else in life, the instructions remain the same, despite changing circumstances: Chop wood, carry water.

  20

  DESTINY’S CHILDREN

  Connection is why we’re here. It’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.

  BRENÉ BROWN

  A funny thing happened while we were in limbo: A new, more dynamic team began to emerge.

  Opening night at the Staples Center was rocky. We lost 95–93 to the Rockets, and the crowd booed Kobe when he was introduced. But three days later we went to Phoenix and beat our nemesis, the Suns, decidedly, 119–98. Our leading scorer that night was newcomer Vladimir Radmanovic with 19 points, and we had four other players in double digits. Derek Fisher, who had rejoined the Lakers in the off-season, viewed the win as a harbinger of things to come. As he later put it, “That game planted just the small seed in our mind that if we played the right way, we could be pretty darn good.”

  By mid-January, we had a 24-11 record and had beaten most of the best teams in the league. One of the reasons for our early success was the coming of age of Andrew Bynum, who had been working on his footwork and passing skills with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kurt Rambis and had developed into a serious scoring threat. Kobe was quick to notice and started using him in screen-rolls, which created a lot of easy shots for Andrew. In the first three months, he averaged a career-high 13.1 points and 10.2 rebounds a game.

  Another reason for our success was the influx of energy from several young backup players, including Radmanovic, Jordan Farmar, Luke Walton, and Sasha Vujacic. Although this crew still had a lot to learn, they’d come a long way. Best of all, they were lively and enthusiastic and improved the team’s chemistry. And when they were clicking, they added a new, fast-moving dimension to our attack that was hard to stop. In late November we also acquired another talented young player, Trevor Ariza, in a trade with Orlando. He was a quick, versatile small forward who could attack the basket and hit outside shots on the run.

  The third—and probably most important—reason for our early breakthrough was the second coming of Derek Fisher. Fish was a veteran of our run of three straight championships, and his return to the Lakers after three years at Golden State and Utah gave us a mature, experienced leader who could run the offense and give the team a much-needed sense of order.

  As I’ve mentioned, one of the keys to our approach is to give players the freedom to find their own destiny within the team structure. Fish wasn’t a creative playmaker like Steve Nash or Chris Paul. But he took advantage of his strengths—mental toughness, clutch outside shooting, and coolheadedness under pressure—to create a role for himself that not only worked for him but had a profound impact on the team.

  “It sounds more mystical than it really is,” he says of the process he went through. “The coaches’ goal was to set down some basic guidelines for us on how to play basketball together as a group. And then you were expected to create your own chart for everything else. It was an uncanny way of creating organization without over-organizing. It wasn’t about what they thought you should be doing, the way many coaches do. They stepped back and let you find your own way.”

  In his first incarnation with the Lakers, Fish started out a
s a backup guard. But he was a diligent student of the game and he continued to add new skills to his repertoire until he worked his way into a starting role in 2001, after Ron Harper left. And though at first he had trouble breaking through screens on defense, he learned to use his formidable strength to muscle his way around big men. He also developed a deadly three-point shot that came in handy in the closing minutes when opponents would gang up on Kobe, leaving Fish wide open to do serious damage. By the time we reached the three-peat season, Fish had become the Lakers’ third leading scorer behind Shaq and Kobe.

  He also was one of the most selfless players I’ve ever coached and a role model for the rest of the players. At the start of the 2003–04 season, I asked him to give up his starting job to make room for Gary Payton, and he did so without complaint. Yet as the season progressed, I increased his playing time, especially at the close of games. The offense just flowed more smoothly when Fish was on the floor.

  After that season, he became a free agent and landed a lucrative five-year deal with the Warriors, but he never found a comfortable role for himself there. Two years later they traded him to Utah, where he played a key role as a backup guard in the team’s drive to the Western Conference finals. But when his daughter was diagnosed with eye cancer that year, Fish approached me about coming back to L.A., where she could get better medical care. Eventually he worked out a deal with Mitch Kupchak that involved getting out of his contract with the Jazz and signing a new one with the Lakers at a reduced salary.

  When Fish showed up, I made him cocaptain. I also told him that I wanted to give backup point guard Jordan Farmar 20-plus minutes per game because he was good at coming off the bench and igniting the attack with his quickness and speed. Fish was fine with that, and together they averaged 20.8 points per game. Once I asked Fish what he needed to improve his game. He replied that he’d like to get more shots, but he knew that he’d have to take what he could get because someone had to run the offense, and it wasn’t going to be Kobe or Lamar.