Mindgames - Hardcover

Lazenby, Roland

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809297078 ISBN 13: 9780809297078

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education, 2000

Synopsis

Faced every game night with the task of urging Michael Jordan not to dominate the basketball in the fourth quarter, to include his teammates, Jackson spoke to Jordan through film clips inserted in the team's scouting tapes. In 1998, as Jackson guided the Bulls to their sixth championship, he chose to insert clips of the feature film Devil's Advocate into the Bulls scouting tapes. In that film, the protagonist's wife slices her own throat with a shard of glass. Feeling the need to speak forcefully; Jackson showed his team a film clip of a possession where Jordan held the ball too long, then he cut to a clip of the woman cutting her own throat. Gruesomely effective, Jackson's editing spoke to Jordan in a way that no verbal communication could. -- from Mindgames

About this title

About the Author

Roland Lazenby (Roanoke, VA) is the author of numerous sports books, including Blood on the Horns: The Long Strange Ride of Michael Jordans Chicago Bulls and Bull Run!, the Independent Publishers Associations 1997 Book of the Year. His work has appeared in Sport, The Sporting News, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

From the Back Cover

Mindgame is the story of Phil Jackson's remarkable rise to the top of the NBA coaching hierarchy. In it, author Roland Lazenby reveals the fascinating elements of Jackson's life and mental approach to coaching that have made followers of his players but also have made him perhaps not surprisingly unpredictable and sometimes unpopular to outsiders. It is also a detailed basketball story, with entertaining accounts from Jackson's years with the New York Knicks under the legENDary Red Holzman to the remarkable six championships as coach of the Chicago Bulls and now a seventh title with the Los Angeles Lakers. Born into a Pentecostal family that kept its distance from the secular world, the young Jackson developed deep appreciation for Native American culture and spiritual beliefs, beliefs that would later influence his unorthodox coaching methods. His transformation from naive child to streetwise flower child happened in a matter of months; his immersion in the counterculture of the 1960s and his injury-plagued NBA career would determine the person and coach he would become. Regarded as a pariah from his playing days, Jackson toiled anonymously as coach of the Continental Basketball Association's Albany Patroons before the Bulls hired him as an assistant coach in 1987 at the unlikely age of forty-one. Assuming the head coaching duties after two seasons, he immediately separated himself from other NBA coaches by heaping pressure on opponents instead of his players. To lessen the anxiety of playing in the white-hot world of the NBA, he brought a thoughtful approach to performance from meditation to mindfulness to yoga. His success lies in his intensely psychological approach to building championship teams maintaining authority without dictating to his players, building friENDships with them without pandering to them, and earning their respect. Jackson's approach is not for everyone. His battles with Bulls management spilled over into an ugly display in 1998 in the midst of their last championship run, and his relationships with a few NBA coaches have turned contentious. Yet even those who don't like him marvel at his mastery, at what he can do with a basketball team that no one else can. In Mindgames, Lazenby compellingly portrays a man with a unique determination to control the competitive environment he inhabits. A clear picture of the Jackson mystique emerges: philosopher, teacher, manipulator, counselor, psychologist, shaman, champion, master of mind games.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809297078
• ISBN 13: 9780809297078
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 16