Phil Jackson Quotes about Basketball

Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We.

The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.

You can't force your will on people. If you want them to act differently, you need to inspire them to change themselves

Like life, basketball is messy and unpredictable. It has its way with you, no matter how hard you try to control it. The trick is to experience each moment with a clear mind and open heart. When you do that, the game - and life - will take care of itself.

In basketball - as in life - true joy comes from being fully present in each and every moment, not just when things are going your way. Of course, it's no accident that things are more likely to go your way when you stop worrying about whether you're going to win or lose and focus your full attention on what's happening right this moment.

I won't coach this team next year if he is still here. He won't listen to anyone. I've had it with this kid.

Love is the force that ignites the spirit and binds teams together.

Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.

Your problems never cease, they just change.

The ideal way to win a championship is step by step.

Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I'm doing.

Not only is there more to life than basketball, there's a lot more to basketball than basketball.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Once you've done the mental work, there comes a point you have to throw yourself into the action and put your heart on the line. That means not only being brave, but being compassionate towards yourself, your teammates and your opponents.

In basketball - as in life - true joy comes from being fully present in each and every moment, not just when things are going your way.

If you meet the Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball.

The greatness of Michael Jordan is his competitive drive. The weakness of Michael Jordan is his competitive drive

My philosophy is that you can't motivate players with speeches, you have motivated players that you draft. That's where they come in and those are the guys that are competitive. You cannot teach competitiveness.

My dad always had this little sign on his desk: 'The bigger your head is, the easier your shoes are to fill'. He really drilled that in.

Approach the game with no preset agendas and you'll probably come away surprised at your overall efforts.

Basketball is a sport that involves the subtle interweaving of players at full speed to the point where they are thinking and moving as one.

I think the most important thing about coaching is that you have to have a sense of confidence about what you're doing. You have to be a salesman and you have to get your players, particularly your leaders, to believe in what you're trying to accomplish on the basketball floor.

The best part of basketball, for those people on the inside, is the bus going to the airport after you've won a game on an opponent's floor. It's been a very tough battle. And preferably, in the playoffs. And that feeling that you have, together as a group, having gone to an opponent's floor and won a very good victory, is as about as high as you can get.

Basketball is a great mystery. You can do everything right. You can have the perfect mix of talent and the best system of offense in the game. You can devise a foolproof defensive strategy and prepare your players for every possible eventuality. But if the players don’t have a sense of oneness as a group, your efforts won’t pay off. And the bond that unites a team can be so fragile, so elusive.

I care about systematically playing basketball. If the spacing isn't right, if guys are standing on top of each other, if there aren't lanes to be provided, or rebounders available to offensively rebound the ball, or we don't have defensive balance when a shot goes up, all of these things are fundamental basketball. I follow it.