Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant didn’t share a good relationship at the beginning. The former was resilient to accept the famed Triangle offense, and according to the Lakers’ legendary coach, he didn’t want to adjust to the team strategy.
Kobe wanted more offense to be centered around himself so he could show his talent. On the other side, Jackson wanted his team to win in the best way they can.
“The other day I said to Kobe, ‘What’s the problem?’” Jackson said, per an ESPN featurette. “He said, ‘The game’s too boring for me. The offense is so simple. It doesn’t display my talent.’ I said, ‘I realize that. But we’re trying to win games with the least amount of things going wrong, the fewest injuries, the least fatigue.’ He said, ‘But it doesn’t give me what I have to have for my game.’”
Jackson then went on to. reveal what Kobe did in high school so that he could be the center of the game. “Someone told me that in high school, Kobe used to sabotage his own games. So the game could be close. So he could dominate at the end. To sabotage the team process, to be so self-centered in your own process… it’s almost stupefying.”
At that point, Jackson was as stumped as he could get as the Black Mamba was all about winning, except that his idea of achieving an objective was different.
The decorated Lakers coach then added that he had picked up a copy of Louis De Bernieres’ ‘Corelli’s Mandolin’ which narrated the story of a tiny Greek island that was taken over by the Italian army during WWII. It spoke of a tight-knit community who were adaptive. And as tragic as the book was, Jackson felt that the book was a great tool for Kobe to understand the culture that LA was trying to inculcate.
Jackson labeled Kobe as a “real Mediterranean kid.” He also added that he had given the guard another book by Paul Beatty. The ‘White Boy Shuffle’ was all about a Black youth growing up in the White community, except that it still didn’t impact Kobe.
“He’s not willing to let someone else’s ideas penetrate his mind. The point of the book was that you can’t always dictate the terms of what your life is going to be,” Jackson said.
Jackson added that the whole point of Corelli’s Mandolin was to get Kobe to understand how they learned to win by losing, but he said that the “point was lost.”
Some of Jackson’s comments about Kobe did hamper their relationship. And in 2015, Kobe has spoken about how his coach would take private conversations public tarnishing the former’s reputation.
Despite their initial hot and cold relationship, both coach and the ward buried the hatched and they would go on to win successive titles in 2009 and 2010. This saw Bryant have five NBA titles to his name, while Jackson had 11. Safe to say, at that point there was no tanking.
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