Is Phil Jackson a Liability for Lakers in the Playoffs?

In my mind I was thinking about what a horrible Coach Don Nelson of the Warriors is.  He is inattentive, old, rich, and coaching a team with no Championship potential.  I thought of some of the younger coaches in the league, guys who are breaking their backs watching film until 3 in the morning, drawing up lots of plays, obsessing over minor details; and know I knew from the look on Don Nelson's face that he wasn't doing any of that.  

And that got me thinking about Coach Phil Jackson.  Now I have nothing against him.  He is more successful as a coach in the NBA than I ever will be at anything.  But when it comes right down to it, Phil Jackson won't be giving the kind of effort his opponents will.  He won't be "slacking off" but he won't be giving max effort.

I think that the kind of effort a coach gives can help with game planning and substitutions; and preparing plays for the ends of close games and out of timeouts.  I don't think Phil's plays will be as sharp as they could be and that could be a major liability in a close game.

Phil is 66 years old.  He has a hurting hip.  He's a legend.  He isn't desperate.  He isn't hungry; he won't work feverishly.  And that could cost his team.  

The game that comes to mind is the 76ers game where Coach Jackson said he thought he made it clear to Trevor Ariza to deny iguodala the three.  Ariza didn't and Iguodala made the game-winning three.  

Now was that Ariza's fault?  Or could it have been Jacksons?  

A hyper-active, energetic, fearful-for-his-job coach would have made damn sure Ariza knew.  But Phil?  Making 10,000,000 a year?  He simply isn't concerned as much.  He can't be.  

The game that comes to mind 

Words of Wisdom from Phil Jackson/ Don Nelson

Phil Jackson has been a coach a long time and has some (hopefully) well thought out opinions about basketball.  Two gems from a recent article:

1) The Suns recently complete a trade, shipping out a large portion of their core players to the Charlotte Bobcats in exchange for some role players.  The day they played the Lakers, because of the logistics of the trade, they were short-handed, suiting up only nine players.  The game was very close and the Lakers narrowly won; however, PJ said that he knew it would be a very close game because teams that are short-handed like the Suns always play with extra intensity, and thats what happened.

This ties in to what I read in a book by RJ Miller, where he said that teams of professionals can usually step up their game when they are short-handed, because everyone knows the game will be that much harder.  

The second-level projection would be finding out when teams that are short-handed then have a drop-off in intensity.  Essentially, when do they let down their guard?  I think that would happen very consistenly amongst "effort-sports", such as hockey, basketball, and football.  

I think that all people can maintain a sense of urgency and "extra" intensity for a set amount of time before they drop off to a level below normal levels as a result of the burned energy called forth during the time of crisis.

2)  Coach Jackson said that no team from the West Coast would ever win 72 games because of the time-zone difference.  Teams travelling from the West to East suffer because they lose two or three hours of sleep/travel time, whereas teams going from East to West get extra time to sleep and prepare.  

The Bulls are from Chicago, which I think is in the Central Time Zone, (GMT -6).  

3) An interesting thing I read from Don Nelson in a news article during the 07-08 season.  He essentially said that the Warriors knew they would lose to the Pistons and said they conceded the game, throwing in the subs in the third quarter.  Obviously, it would be great to know when the Coach and team "know" they will lose a game.

Also, it is interesting to note how easily he mentioned it and it sparked no real outrage or commentary, as far as I can tell.  

Where is the data?

I just read an article about the difficulty of determining the value of an NBA coach. Careful statistical analysis and recording of lots of data still makes it nearly impossible to gauge the effect of a coach.

Basketball as a sport is the least-quantifiable of the major sports. Baseball is the most easily quantifiable. It is made of of discreet steps and one-on-one confrontations between pitcher and batter.

But perhaps the problem isn't with the data, it is with people. We have a love for numbers, for quantifiable effects, for a head-to-head comparison between rivals to determine the worth of each component. But is this a cognitive bias?

A successful team is a synergy of 12 players, each with a different role, different skills, different physical attributes, and different number of minutes played. Also, only five players can play at a time, so mixing and matching of skills and suitability occurs. The coaches are required to find the right mix of players, playing time, and also fit it in to the context of the flow of the game. Lastly, their is the opponents team to consider, and how well the players on the floor work together to beat the opposing five players, who are also struggling to find their own right mix.

As one can tell, it gets messy fast. Things like personnel skills and human resources though are not quantifiable. It seems that a love of science and numbers frequently blinds people to the two different sides of our brain. One is mathematically inclined, the other is artistically inclined. A problem can have both a numbers side (shooting percentage, number of rebounds) and an artistic side (are these players working together well).

Jeff Van Gundy always struck me as a coach who had a strong affinity for the numbers and technical aspects but never had a clue as to the inter-personal, synergistic side of basketball. Phil Jackson strikes me as more of a coach who is best when he has really good players and figures out how to get them to work together and utilize their talents. I don't think his value is in reminding Kobe to block out or the proper technique. Its in provoking Kobe to want to block out. Jeff knows more about blocking out, but Jackson can get him to do it.

NBA players are a finished product by the time the arrive on the scene. You can't change a man's heart but you can certainly squash out the flame inside him.

Anyways, I think that judging the effect of a coach is more of a right-brain activity which can only be judged and discussed, but trying to quantify it is a laughable activity.

I also think that successful investors in sports are the only people truly qualified to give a valuable opinion on more qualitative judgements. They are paid to be right and punished if they are wrong.