Los Angeles Lakers' Phil Jackson a Bad Winner?

Don’t you love it when sports writers create a blog talking purely out of their, let’s just say, ‘ass’. A recent blogger on ESPN posted a story entitled Sore Winners. The main example used in the story was none other then the Zen Master himself, Phil Jackson of the World Champion Los Angeles Lakers.  The story claims that Phil is a bad winner because we wore a hat with X, the Roman numeral 10, once the Lakers beat the Orlando Magic in the finals last month. The X stands for his unprecedented tenth title as a head coach, exceeding the great Red Auerbach.  So why is the hat showing bad sportsmanship? Every time Michael Jordan won a title, he always held up the fingers of the championship, 1 through 6. Nike made a special shirt for Kobe Bryant’s fourth championship that he wore at the Lakers victory parade. Therefore by default, MJ and Kobe are bad sports too?  Why should Phil, or any athlete for that matter, have to mask what they have accomplished? It’s not like he ran around the court refusing to shake the other teams’ hands, yelling he is the best. The hat was not just a way for Phil to show off, but a gift to him. It wasn’t a gift from Nike or any other sponsor, but rather a gift from his children. He wore a gift showing off his accomplishment from the people that matter the most to him. That’s a bad sport if I’ve ever seen one! 

FYI when the hat was duplicated for sale, all the proceeds went to charity.