Retirement No. 3 suits Phil Jackson just fine
By Homer D. Sayson
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 05 Feb 2012
HUNGRY for a Phil Jackson tidbit? Wait a few months, the Zen Master will have plenty to say and you can all gobble it up at a bookstore near you.
The winningest coach in NBA history -- who won 6 championships with the Chicago Bulls and five with the Los Angeles Lakers -- is writing a memoir aptly titled "Eleven Rings." Penguin Press will release the finished product sometime next year.
The 66-year old Jackson has 1,155 coaching wins under his belt and he owns an NBA best 70.4 winning percentage. His last foray into writing was in 2004, when he penned the best-selling "The Last Season: A team in search of its soul," which told the tale of the Lakers' ill-fated 2003-04 campaign.
Jackson retired for the third time this past summer after his Lakers were embarassingly eliminated from the playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks, who eventually won the 2011 NBA title.
As a player, Jackson played for the New York Knicks from 1967 to 1978. And when his beloved Knicks struggled mightily early this season, losing 8 of 9 games at one point, speculation grew that he might be lured back to coaching and replace current Knicks coach Mike D' Antoni.
But all the talk and rumors turned out to be just that, talk and rumors.
"I have no desire to coach," Jackson told the New York Times. "You never say never, right? I mean there's always something that might change my mind -- but I just don't see it."
Jackson, a divorced father of three children, has seven grandchildren. And he is happily spending time with them, saying "I had Christmas with my kids and grandkids in Yosemite Park..There are things that have been fun for me, not living life on a schedule for 200 and some days a year."
If there is such a thing as a coaching itch, the Zen Master doesn't feel any.
"I really don't miss it. But I think a have to stick my finger into an electric socket every once in a while just to get a little jolt out of life to keep it going because that's what gave me the joys, the jollies of life."
Definitely, there won't be any Jackson sighting at the NBA sidelines in the immediate future. But what if the Miami job becomes vacant, will the allure of coaching LeBron James entice the Zen Master?
Imagine the possibilities. Jackson and LeBron. South Beach and the Larry O'Brien trophy.
Stay tuned.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Homer D. Sayson.
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