Phil Jackson: Kobe Bryant ‘was always sensitive to criticism’
Phil Jackson once labeled Kobe Bryant “uncoachable,” but years after making the remark, he’s clearing up what he meant by it.
The latest edition of Today’s Fastbreak’s Phil Jackson Chronicles focuses on Jackson and Bryant, and the evolution of their sometimes difficult relationship. In it, he disputes that he ever said Bryant was “uncoachable.”
“Shaq was traded, I didn’t re-sign with the Lakers and I wrote a book,” Jackson said of the end of his first tenure with the Lakers. “I never really said that Kobe was ‘uncoachable.’ What I did write was that I couldn’t coach him anymore. In any case, Kobe was always sensitive to criticism, so he was hurt by the book.”
Bryant was driven by criticism and doubters, so it’s no surprise he didn’t like Jackson’s original comments. It sounds like the coach didn’t mean them as brutally as many people took them, though.
