Lakers News: 2-Time LA Champ Reveals How Phil Jackson Motivated His Players

The Zen Master is a renowned leader.

Ever since he was merely a defensive-oriented reserve on the New York Knicks, eventual five-time Los Angeles Lakers champion head coach Phil Jackson has always marched to the beat of his own drum.

Jackson's methods for managing the big egos of his superstar players during his stints coaching the Chicago Bulls and later the Lakers may have been fairly irregular, but darn it they got results. He's won more titles (11) than any other head coach in the NBA. 

Retired 6'9" power forward/center Josh Powell, a deep-bench reserve during the Lakers' final two title runs under Jackson from 2008-10, recently expounded on Jackson's unique approaches to galvanizing his players.

Powell recently chatted with Bovada's Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson in an extensive new interview where they discussed Jackson, Powell's new book "I Wish I Knew," and a whole lot more.

Powell responded to a question from Robinson about how many players who were prescribed a book by Jackson (of the 15 on the team) actually read those books.

"I want to say out of 15… I’m sure to say that we had at least six or seven that read and the six or seven probably put it to the side," Powell revealed. "I know for me that I definitely read the books that he gave because there was always something really intriguing about Phil, you know? I’ve been able to play with different coaches, but you hear what you hear about him and then finally being able to be underneath the same organization and just watching how he moves. He’s very strategic in everything that he does right, wrong or indifferent; but he is one of the greatest ever to do it rightfully so, you know? And the way that he was able to orchestrate everybody on that team to be the best versions of themselves -- just all the different ways that he would ‘poke bears’ and get what he needed to get out of you. So I’m just really grateful for him and as I think about it, he’s probably the ONLY coach to pass out books from time to time and come through and sage the locker rooms and sage the film rooms [laughs]... but I really appreciate Phil."

When asked about how Jackson needled his players to evince even better performances out of them on the hardwood, Powell spoke at length about how pointed comments to the media seemed to stoke a flame in the LA small forward then known as Ron Artest, who know goes by Metta Sandiford-Artest.

"One of the things that come to mind I remember was I think he publicly said something about Ron in the media. Like, he didn’t go to Ron about it, he publicly said it and Ron was like, “You could’ve came to me. You’re costing me money…” but it was crazy because right after that, Ron -- I mean, Ron was SOLID throughout the year; don’t get me wrong," Powell said. "That’s my brother. He is one of the BEST people and players that I’ve had a chance to play with. But coming in and learning that triangle offense takes time, you know what I mean? And for him to… it’s like he kicked it into another gear because right around that time when that went down, we were towards that latter part of the season so you know playoffs is right around the corner and he basically like… it was him literally getting into playoff shape early with everything that transpired in Atlanta. But it was Phil just being Phil, you know? It would just be the things that he would do -- he could pull you to the side and say it, he could go to the media and say it and be petty, he could do it in front of everybody in the locker room… but he just had different ways that went about doing it, you know? All in all it just caused a reaction within everybody, you know? And then if a player really couldn’t understand it, you always had Kobe or D-Fish to be the people that come behind and say, “Look. This is why he did that. This is what’s going on and this is what he’s thinking…” So it was great, man. Phil was truly amazing as a coach at least from my perspective.

During his two seasons as a Laker, the North Carolina State product averaged 3.4 points on 40.9% shooting from the floor, 2.4 rebounds, and 0.5 assists a night, across 10.4 minutes.