He took over a Laker team that had shaq and kobe
yeah but he also stuck with the lakers before they won their most recent back to back titles, after Rudy tomjonavich bowed out, Jackson came back and helped rebuild this team, people forget they werent title contenders again until they got derek fisher back from the jazz, and made that trade for gasol and bynum developed. before that they had kwame brown, smush parker, chris mihm and luke walton as the side show bobs for kobe bryant.
so if you are going to tell me that what we have now, isnt a better starting point than the team phil jackson came back to the lakers for then youre incredibly mislead.
Phil jackson didnt take over a necessarily loaded bulls team either, despite the fact they had jordan and pippen, those two werent the jordan and pippen of the phil jackson era, they were young athletes who didnt play as a team and would get demolished by the pistons every year.
phil doesnt get enough credit for drawing good players to come play for him, and turning them into a "team" with a game plan, and a defensive mind set.
When phil initially came to the lakers they did have shaq, but other than that no one knew what kobe would turn into he was coming off the bench for an aging eddie jones at the time, derek fisher was a nobody late draft pick, and shaq was considered a big brute who only cared about fame and his rapping career after getting schooled by olajuwan in the finals. Phil jackson not only coaches great players, but he helps players become great, and he would be perfect for Melo at this juncture in his career, and in terms of a shoot first pg ? if billups can resign with us for 3 more years at cheap, and douglas can progress; those two would be perfect in the triangle, both can shoot the three, understand defense and are high IQ pg's which is what phil loves, well BIllups is high IQ, but if you noticed the progress of douglas under the tutelage of billups, you can only imagine having phil jackson and billups in douglas's ear every game, he would turn into the best back up pg in the league; which he might arguably already be going into next season.
see Paxson, BJ armstrong, Derek Fisher, Bobby Hanson, Ron Harper ( I know ron harper wasnt a pg, but he started there for those bulls teams and similar to Billups he was a guy who can handle the ball, take big shots and run the offense correctly).
In truth im salivating at the idea of him sitting on the side lines
word is his hips are better, his knees are no longer an issue, and he is going into a weight loss program to drop some pounds to alleviate the stress on his body.
I can only imagine he would want to come full circle follow in red holzman's footsteps i.e. his hero; and take the knicks to glory walking away as the most dominant coach ever.