A Quote by Phil Jackson
Basketball is a great mystery. You can do everything right. You can have the perfect mix of talent and the best system of offense in the game. You can devise a foolproof defensive strategy and prepare your players for every possible eventuality. But if the players don’t have a sense of oneness as a group, your efforts won’t pay off. And the bond that unites a team can be so fragile, so elusive.
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When your great players are team players, everybody else follows their lead. The best team doesn't always win - it's usually the team that gets along best.
To give yourself the best possible chance of playing to your potential, you must prepare for every eventuality. That means practice.
Offense at Indiana is not equal opportunity. Those players who shoot best are going to shoot most. It is important that every player know his offensive limitations. It is also important that a player know who the best shooter is on the team. When a passer has the option of passing to two players, I expect him to get the ball to the best shooter. I continually stop practice and ask players who the best shooter is and I expect them to know. It is important that you get the ball to your best shooter.
I hate to say it's not a Laker but Michael Jordan. He's been the greatest player I've ever seen. And I'm probably a harsh judge of talent in the sense that I admire players that are really good defensive players and really good offensive players.
The on-field stuff, setting fields, changing bowlers, that's the easy part. It's making sure all your players are on the same page with what your plans are and what you want from your players and the team. That's the biggest challenge and what you really need to get right if you want your team to be successful.
You always miss a great player, but I think the players on this team have taken a lot of pride in overcoming obstatcles when we have a player down ? not only the offensive players, but the defensive players. We were very fortunate that we played that well.
The great thing about [Michael] Jordan was that he made them want it just like he wanted it. And a lot of times like a lot of the basketball players, not to be getting on basketball, but, with a lot of the basketball players you might have one superstar on the team, and they're not willing to play up to par with the way he is, so they don't make it. But then you have some celebrities on the basketball team, and they don't know how to get along with each other!
A system depends on the players you have. I played 4-3-3 with Ajax, 2-3-2-3 with Barcelona and a 4-4-2 with AZ. I'm flexible. The philosophy stays the same though. I don't think that you can adapt it to every possible situation. You need the right mindset, and it depends on how the players see the coach and vice versa. The coach is the focal point of the team but you need to have an open mind, and so do all the players. Everyone needs to work together to achieve a common goal.
I had a vision of how basketball should be played. And the vision was the Knicks teams that won the championship in 1970 and 1973. I wanted a team that emphasized defense. I wanted a team that on offense had a system where players moved off the ball, and the ball moved.
From the standpoint that you try to adjust your offense to your quarterback, you try to adjust your football team around your players. You do the best you can with the hand that you have, and you've got to add some parts along the way.
Yes, the national team is all one team. We are not Real Madrid players, Barcelona players, Celta Vigo players... all of us are a group.
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When you are speaking to your team after a game, never talk about the kid who was the star of the game. Talk about what your other players did to help the team win. Be sure to spread the wealth... Then have individual meetings with one to three players to praise and reinforce. Make sure you touch them.
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I've seen the growth of this game in this country, the stadiums that were built, the great European players that have come and the great American players who've been created. Americans want to be number one at everything. And they are at baseball, football, basketball. Soccer is growing fast, and I want to be a part of that.
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