Mindgames: Phil Jackson's Long, Strange Journey - Hardcover

Lazenby, Roland

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809297078 ISBN 13: 9780809297078

Publisher: Contemporary Books, 2000

Synopsis

Chronicles Jackson's rise to prominence as a coach of professional basketball teams including the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, and explores his ability to successfully counsel, teach, and lead his players.

About this title

About the Author

ROLAND LAZENBY

A 1975 graduate of Virginia Military Institute, Roland Lazenby holds a master’s degree in creative writing from Hollins University.

Before becoming a freelancer in 1984, he worked seven years as a newspaper reporter. His years as a reporter afforded him a broad range of experiences, covering prisons, crime, government and circuit court beats. In that capacity, Lazenby was among a team of reporters that produced an award-winning series on the status of African Americans living in Virginia in 1983.

In 1992, Lazenby authored Legacy, a book commemorating Larry Bird’s retirement from the Boston Celtics.

He served as the senior writer for the Chicago Tribune’s commemorative book Three-Peat! about Michael Jordan and the Bulls in 1993. He also contributed two stories to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s official 100-year commemorative magazine.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said that Roland Lazenby’s The Lakers: A Basketball Journey, written in 1993, was the “best, most in-depth work” to date on the National Basketball Association’s glamour team.

His book, Bull Run! the story of the 1996 Chicago Bulls was named the Sports Book of the Year for 1997 by the Independent Publishers Association.

His 1998 book, Blood on the Horns: The Long Strange Ride of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, had an even wider impact. Excerpted for five straight days by the Chicago Sun-Times, the book stirred Chicago with a stunning series of revelations about the Bulls and drove newsstand sales for the Sun-Times to huge gains.

“We captured magic in a bottle,” declared Sun-Times executive sports editor Bill Adee.

Lazenby’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Sport, The Sporting News, The Chicago Sun-Times, Profiles, Tuff Stuff, Jam, GridIron, Beckett Basketball, the Japanese magazines DunkShoot Hoop and Sports Graphic Number. He is a regular contributor to Fox Sports Online and a member of the Pro Sports Xchange, Lazenby also serves as the editor of Lindy’s Pro Basketball Annual. Among his free-lance projects, Lazenby authored a 10,000 word section on basketball’s first 50 years for Inside Sports’ College Basketball.

Lazenby teamed up with NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group in 1999 to publish Mad Game: The NBA Education of Kobe Bryant.

Working with Contemporary Books once again, Lazenby’s newest book, Mindgames, provides an amazing inside look at one of the game’s greatest practitioners.

It is Lazenby’s familiarity with the subject and his outstanding sources that make him the ideal writer for a frank, unflinching depiction of this fascinating coach.

His work on previous books and projects has earned him access to make Mindgames a title every pro basketball fan will want to read.

He resides in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and teaches journalism at Virginia Tech.

From the Inside Flap

Mindgames 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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Contemporary Books
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809297078
• ISBN 13: 9780809297078
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 404