445 Quotes by Phil Jackson

The greatness of Michael Jordan is his competitive drive. The weakness of Michael Jordan is his competitive drive.

When we called time-out with twenty-five seconds to go,” he re-called, “we went into the huddle and Phil said, ‘Michael, I want you to take the last shot,’ and Michael said, ‘You know, Phil, I don’t feel comfortable in these situations. So maybe we ought to go in another direction.’ Then Scottie said, ‘You know, Phil, Michael said in his commercial that he’s been asked to do this twenty-six times and he’s failed. So why don’t we go to Steve.

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.

I’m a sports-watcher. I played football and baseball, coached baseball. So I watch those things.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.

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.

I think the most important thing about coaching is that you have to have a sense of confidence about what you’re doing.

The problem with trading dominant players of that size is you never get in return what you’ve bargained away.

My philosophy is that you can’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 cannot teach competitiveness.