Truer Words NEVER Spoken: Robert Horry

[JDawg]

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wireta ... n_jackson/

HORRY SAYS POPOVICH IS BETTER THAN JACKSON.

Truer words have NEVER been spoken.

Lets not forget a few things.

1) Pop has talent on his teams. However, he has NEVER EVER had two of the top 5 players in the league on his team.

2) Pop coaches defense and his offense is very good also. Jackson had a guy named John Bach coach his defense in Chicago. Thats why those teams were always championship level defensive teams.

THINK Tom Thibedeau in Boston. Except PJ knew how to coach an offense.

3) Phil's philosoph EVEN NOW for anyone who knows him is a well run offense is your best defense. GIVE ME A F'in BREAK.

Bottom line is, I dont care HOW WELL your offense is, if you are an all world defensive coach, he'll figure out how to slow your offense down.

Thats the thing here. Pop's teams weren't necessarily MORE talented than LA, but they beat LA with DEFENSE. Thats the key. DEFENSE

Gregg Popovich would have won every title PJ EVER WON with those stacked teams and probably even more so in LA by getting the Lakers to play better defense.

Lakers were NEVER a top 5 defensive team outside of their first title in 2000, yet got by with a legendarily unstoppable offense.

Had Popovich coached that team, the offense would have still been there, but the defense would have been all world and in 2002-2003, would have BEATEN the Spurs had both coaches switched places.

Thats the ultimate test here.

In the annals of NBA history, name a team that Gregg Popovich could NOT have coached to a title.

Shaq and Kobe Lakers
Detroit Pistons
MJ's Bulls
Magic and Kareem's Lakers
The Celtics

Any of those coaches that won titles with their great teams, would have been EVEN BETTER with Gregg Popovich coaching them becauase

a- Pop doenst slow down your offense

BUT

b- Makes your defense the best in the league by FAR.

I admire that man to no end and WISH upon WISH that Kobe could have just had him as a coach or someone like him that preached defense like their lives depended on it. That way guys like FArmar, Vladimir Radmanovich and OTHER idiotic lakers who play virtually ZERO defense would not even see the F'in floor.

Think about what this man has done. He's turned guys who never KNEW the meaning of defense into extremely capable team defenders. Guys like Michael Finley of the run and gun Mavs, Brent Barry, Tony Parker, etc.

These guys didnt play a lick of defense before Popovich. NOW???? They are part of a GREAT team defense.

If Given the same team, I'll stake my life on Popovich vs. Phil in any series any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Bottom line, Pop wins more titles with less talent. And he turns mediocre defenders into GREAT team defenders.

How else to explain Mike Brown, his understudy and the CAvalier Defense.

Thats the thing here. What coach has PJ EVER had become successful elsewhere? NONE.

[Anticon]

Yep.

You certainly have thought about this.

[LLcoleJ]

but but .. Kobe would never say this.

[UDRIH14]

he make ur team the best defensive team in the league, but you wont win DPOY...10yrs and still counting.

[bleu]

I couldn't agree more. Pop is by far better than Jackson.

[Blame Rasho]

I always said you lose whatever arguement when you resort to what if scenarios.

[BobbySura]

1) Pop has talent on his teams. However, he has NEVER EVER had two of the top 5 players in the league on his team.

no, but he's easily had top 5 talent in at least 3 of the positions on his team.

parker is arguably top 5 at the point and probably the point guard at getting into the paint in the league.

manu is probably #2 in the league at the sg position behind kobe. depending on what you consider iverson to be. even if you don't agree with that, i don't think you can argue he's not a top 5 SG SOMEWHERE.

duncan was and probably is still the number 1 or 2 PF in the league. and drob a few seasons if i'm not mistaken.

both are good coaches and both have had good stacked teams.

[Rodya]

I'd like to see how much better he'd make New York...and they're stacked talent wise.

[G35]

I think Phil has been lucky to have MJ, Scottie, Kobe and Shaq. He has 9 rings.

I think Pop has been lucky to have Duncan. He has 4 rings.

Who thinks that Pops style of yelling all the time would work with Shaq? How about Kobe? Pop is lucky he had Duncan who doesn't have a big ego and can take all the yelling. Any other superstar would have had him fired years ago.

Phil's ability to manage personalities and have them all going in the same direction is underrated......

[Boognish]

Yes, Phil has had more talent, but with that comes the task of juggling superstar egoes. Less talent=more control/ more talent=less control

And how much more successful could Phil's teams really have been? Nine titles in a twelve year strech! Pop is a great coach, but let's not discredit Phil

[Quiet-Storm]

Hovich coached that team, the offense would have still been there, but the defense would have been all world and in 2002-2003, would have BEATEN the Spurs had both coaches switchead Popd places.

Thats the ultimate test here.

Your entire post is full of illogical biases like these.

Earlier you asserted that P.Jackson focused all his strategy on offence.
Then you said Popovich focuses more on defense.

Then you conclude that if Popovich had coached Jacksons teams. The "offense would have still been there, but the defense would have been all world"

That the team's defense would improve is a given. But who are you to so confidently claim that Pop would still be able to maintain a comparable offensive punch like Phil's?

[a-rod]

Jackson brings out the best in all of the players on his roster.

I think Phil has been lucky to have MJ, Scottie, Kobe and Shaq.

I don't care if Jackson gets the best players in the world, You still don't win it on paper. You have to go out there and win....

9 rings.

9 rings with him, 1 without him. if anything Phil Jackson is underrated.

[FlightNo.23]

Can't go wrong with either

[Kobay]

^^ Pop does bring the best out of their player on BOTH ENds. I mean several role players on the team are bunch of old people and player with no name and even during the time when Timmy and Parker was out with injury they still played great defense. Phil Jackson may get something out of the offense with Triangle but he certainly haven't conviced anyone with laker's defense. What happened in finals against Detroit? ALmost all shooters for lakers shot 30% while not being able to make any stop against detroit that didn't have players that demanded double teams.

Jdawg posts may be little emotional but he knows his stuff.

[Basileus777]

Yes, Phil has had more talent, but with that comes the task of juggling superstar egoes. Less talent=more control/ more talent=less control

Yep. I'd like to see how Pop would handle egos like Jordan, Shaq, Kobe etc. He's never really had to do it, Robinson, Duncan, Parker, Manu...these aren't big ego guys.

[Sedale Threatt]

Agree completely. Which is Jackson, for that reason alone, was the absolutely ideal coach for the Kobe-Shaq Lakers.

That team would have imploded a lot earlier than it finally did had he not been there to manage, manipulate and cajole two players who, for all their immense talent, more often than not disliked, if not outright hated, each other.

Thus, Jackson's first stint in L.A. can be summed up as thus: Prior to his arrival, the Lakers were getting bombed out of the playoffs on a regular basis. He shows up, and all of a sudden everything clicks and the team starts to reel off titles. That didn't just happen by chance. Nor was it just chance that Jackson was able to prove himself to a skeptical Michael Jordan and earn his complete respect/trust.

Would Popovich have done better? Who knows? He's certainly done fantastic with the cards he's been dealt in San Antonio. But it would have taken an entirely different skill set than he's shown in terms of working with some of the most coachable cornerstones in NBA history -- a completely ego-free superstar in Tim Duncan, an All-Star willing to come off the bench without a whimper and another who was mature enough to start in the league as an 18-year-old rookie.

He hasn't had a single crisis in San Antonio to deal with -- ever. Jackson, during championship runs 2 and 3, was putting out fires on a seemingly weekly basis, and still managed to keep the ship from sinking. That alone negates the "roll-out-the-ball" theory people like to use to discredit his accomplishments.

[tmac4real]

thing about Phil is that what was great was totally opposite of what was great about someone like Larry Brown.

Larry Brown doesn't know how to handle people but is probably the best X and O coach in history.

Phil may be good but not "legendary" at X and O but he knows how to handle superstars better than nay other coach that has ever played the game. This while not being in the convential part of coaching STILL MATTERS, evidenced by his 9 rings. He has coached and led some of the BIGGEST EGOS in history, MJ, Kobe, Shaq to titles.

This is where Phil's greatness lies.

Poppovich I believe is the better coach in convential terms, as far as getting your team to focus on BASKETBALL skills, but when you are dealing with talents such as Shaq/Kobe/Jordan/Pippen you need more than that.

And that "more than that" is what Phil specialized in.

[andrewww]

thing about Phil is that what was great was totally opposite of what was great about someone like Larry Brown.

Larry Brown doesn't know how to handle people but is probably the best X and O coach in history.

Phil may be good but not "legendary" at X and O but he knows how to handle superstars better than nay other coach that has ever played the game. This while not being in the convential part of coaching STILL MATTERS, evidenced by his 9 rings. He has coached and led some of the BIGGEST EGOS in history, MJ, Kobe, Shaq to titles.

This is where Phil's greatness lies.

Poppovich I believe is the better coach in convential terms, as far as getting your team to focus on BASKETBALL skills, but when you are dealing with talents such as Shaq/Kobe/Jordan/Pippen you need more than that.

And that "more than that" is what Phil specialized in.

yep. phil was the master at massaging massive egos but always keeping his team focused on their goals. those goals always included a championship.

[sirgant1]

Well let's see Pop "coach" the Spurs to victory over the Hornets in this Western Conference series. That way he can get to half of Phil's championship rings.

[KBCPDR]

correct me if i'm wrong but...

PJax with the lakers is 14-7 vs Pop and the Spurs in the playoffs and is 3-1 as far as the series count goes?

i'm just saying.