Phil Jackson

Phil Jackson is an American former professional basketball coach and player whose 20-year coaching career produced 11 NBA championships — six with the Chicago Bulls (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998) and five with the Los Angeles Lakers (2000, 2001, 2002, 2009, 2010) — making him the most-decorated head coach in NBA history. He was born Philip Douglas Jackson on September 17, 1945, in Deer Lodge, Montana. His father Charles Jackson was a Pentecostal minister and his mother Elisabeth Funk Jackson was also a Pentecostal minister. The strict Pentecostal upbringing shaped his later interest in alternative spiritual traditions, particularly Lakota Sioux spirituality and Zen Buddhism — which became the foundation of his coaching philosophy.

His college career at the University of North Dakota (1963–1967) under coach Bill Fitch produced two NCAA Division II Final Four appearances. The 1967 NBA Draft second-round selection by the New York Knicks launched his 13-year NBA playing career. He won two NBA championships as a Knicks bench player in 1970 and 1973 under head coach Red Holzman.

His 1989 hiring as head coach of the Chicago Bulls — replacing Doug Collins — produced the Michael Jordan-led Bulls dynasty across 1991–1998. The two three-peat sequences (1991–1993 and 1996–1998) made the Bulls the first NBA team to win six championships in eight seasons. His 1999 hiring as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers produced the Shaquille O'Neal-and-Kobe Bryant Lakers three-peat (2000, 2001, 2002) and the Pau Gasol-and-Kobe Bryant Lakers back-to-back championships (2009, 2010).

His coaching philosophy combined the triangle offense (developed by his Bulls assistant coach Tex Winter) with mindfulness-meditation team-building practices. His 2014 appointment as president of basketball operations for the Knicks was less successful — the Knicks went 80-166 across his three-year tenure before his June 2017 dismissal. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007. He was previously married to June Perry (1974, divorced 2007); he has been engaged to Lakers executive Jeanie Buss since 2013.

His name Phil is the English short form of Philip (from the Greek Philippos meaning "lover of horses"). Phil was a popular American boys' name through the mid-20th century.