Arnold,

I bought Phil’s new book on pre-order a few weeks back. It will automatically download onto my Kindle on 5/21. I’ve read all his books and they are usually enjoyable to read.

It takes many variables that have to come together to produce a championship team. I would identify 1) Ownership, 2) Coaching and management staff and 3) Player personnel in that order. Some coaches or managers build teams from scratch like Bill Walsh. Phil was always the second variable, sitting comfortably in between great ownership and great players. The proven Ownership was in place and the team had cream of the crop players. All the team needed was the “integrating” factor, that being the head coach. Twice this model worked with unbelievably successful results, the Bulls and the Lakers, for a total of 11 championships, thus the title of the book. Neither team, in spite of the great players on the team, would have won many, or any, NBA Titles without Phil Jackson. He just has that ability to pull it all together. In basketball terms he’s the Bill Walsh of basketball, both men being really quite brilliant. Good for me both guys came to my teams.

After the Magic and Bird years (I’m just finishing Magic’s auto-biography) there was a vacuum in the league that was filled by Michael Jordan and the Bulls. They struggled in the league until Phil came along and then they became dominant over the course of a decade, never losing in the Finals, winning six in eight years, a pair of three peats. One wonders if you could have put the greatest Bulls team of the 90’s on the court against the greatest Lakers team or the greatest Celtics team of the 80’s, what the results would have been. My feeling is the 1987 Lakers team was probably the greatest basketball team of all time, comparable to the 1989 49ers, and that the 1984 Celtics would have been up there. Some of those Bulls teams belong in the same category.

Phil is right when he says he had the fortune to play with two of the greatest Guards in NBA history. He’s also right to give the edge in skill level to Michael. For Kobe to be considered slightly second fiddle to Michael is no insult – Kobe has done some incredible things in his career, in some ways, more so than Jordan. Jordan may considered the greatest athlete of the 20th century, or in the top 10 at the very least. Kobe would be high up on that list as well, and I don’t think you could think of many, or any, Guards who were better, except for Michael Jordan.

Jordan had his faults, his gambling debts, his willfulness, his vindictive nature. Kobe had the sexual assault charges and his moody isolationism.

I always enjoy reading books about the great sports dynasties in history and the lives of the players. In some ways I think these stories are more lessons in life for the rest of us to learn from, and to be inspired by, than of other historical figures not in the entertainment business.