Phil Jackson
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Philip Douglas Jackson (born September 17, 1945) is an American former professional basketball player, coach, and executive in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Jackson is a 13-time NBA champion, having won two as a player and 11 as a head coach. His 11 championships as a head coach is the most in NBA history. In 2007, Jackson was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and was named one of the 10 greatest coaches in league history in 1996. He holds numerous other records as a coach, including the most postseason wins (229), and most conference titles (13). Jackson played college basketball for the North Dakota Fighting Hawks (known then as the Fighting Sioux) for three years, and was selected in the 1967 NBA draft by the New York Knicks, with whom he won two NBA titles as a player. After playing thirteen seasons in the league, he began coaching in international basketball leagues for five years before he was hired as the assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls in 1987. Jackson was later promoted to head coach of the Bulls in 1989, and he helped the team win six championships (1991–1993, 1996–1998). In 1999, Jackson was hired as a head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, and he coached the team to three consecutive titles from 2000 to 2002. Following the Lakers' loss to the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals, he took a season off from coaching and returned to the Lakers in 2005, winning two more championships (2009, 2010) before his retirement in 2011. He later was team president of the New York Knicks, where he began his playing career, from 2014 to 2017. Jackson is known for his use of Tex Winter's triangle offense as well as a holistic approach to coaching that was influenced by Eastern philosophy, garnering him the nickname "Zen Master". Jackson cited Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as one of the major guiding forces in his life. He also applied Native American spiritual practices as documented in his book Sacred Hoops. He is the author of several candid books about his teams and his basketball strategies.