Eleven Rings summary

For Phil Jackson, basketball was a lot like jazz. A devoted music fan, he often drew inspiration from Thelonious Monk’s famous list of advice to his bandmates. Among the notes were reminders like, “Just because you’re not a drummer doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep time” and “Don’t play everything every time – the things you don’t play are as important as the things you do.” In Monk’s musical wisdom, Jackson recognized timeless lessons about collaboration, rhythm, and the art of improvisation, principles he carried straight onto the basketball court.

But to improvise effectively, you need structure. Enter the triangle offense. It’s a system where three players form a triangle on one side of the court, with specific spacing that creates multiple options for ball movement and scoring. The beauty lies in its unpredictability. As Kobe Bryant later explained, "The opposition didn't know what we were going to do, because we didn't know what we were going to do." Players read the defense and reacted instinctively, like jazz musicians responding to each other's cues.

In 1991, the Chicago Bulls conquered Magic Johnson's Lakers and clinched their first championship. Jordan scored 31 points in the deciding game in front of a raucous Chicago crowd. 

How did the Bulls pull off the win? Strategy, as any sports nerd could tell you, played a crucial role. The Bulls had perfected the triangle offense, but they'd also started experimenting with what Jackson called "automatics" – choreographed reactions to specific defensive situations. One famous automatic was the "Blind Pig," where a player would cut to the high post, receive a pass with his back to the basket, then quickly find an open teammate as defenders collapsed on him. Simple, but incredibly effective.

In Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, the Bulls trailed the Utah Jazz by one point with less than ten seconds left. Then Michael Jordan stripped the ball from Karl Malone, dribbled up court, and made an elegant jumpshot – the shot that basketball fans know as The Last Shot – over Bryon Russell with 5.2 seconds remaining on the clock.

When Jordan later described what was going through his mind during that sequence, it sounded remarkably like mindfulness meditation. When he got the steal, he said, "the moment became the moment". He was pure Zen.

When Phil Jackson arrived in Los Angeles in 1999, he found a team bursting with talent but lacking maturity. Shaquille O'Neal had a massive presence and young Kobe Bryant displayed breathtaking athleticism. Individual talent was everywhere. But perhaps that – the individual part, not the talent part – was the problem. Unlike the Bulls with the Pistons, the Lakers weren’t unified against one big rival. Unlike Chicago, Los Angeles was a city brimming with distractions. The Lakers were Hollywood royalty – not exactly ideal conditions for setting aside individual ego in service of the team.

In response to this challenge, Jackson introduced his most comprehensive teaching tool: Buddha's Eightfold Path. In Buddhist tradition, these eight interconnected practices are a path that guides practitioners away from selfishness and toward wisdom. The practices include Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Concentration. Jackson devoted entire coaching sessions to translating these ancient principles into the Lakers reality.

The 2008 NBA Finals were humiliating for the Lakers. Boston's Big Three – Pierce, Garnett, and Allen – dismantled them in six games, reviving the legendary Lakers-Celtics rivalry that had defined the 1980s. 

But in 2010, that was all behind them and Jackson was facing fresh challenges. The Lakers were integrating mercurial newcomer Ron Artest into the team. Kobe Bryant – no longer a hot-headed young star but a seasoned leader – was aging. A nagging right knee injury meant spectacular moments didn't come as effortlessly. Sometimes, chasing those highlights, he reverted to his old shot-seeking ways.