Phil Jackson’s name still carries championship weight, but Shaquille O’Neal isn’t convinced the old formula would land the same way in today’s NBA.
That was the crux of Shaq’s comments on the Rushmore Podcast, where he pushed back on the idea that Jackson’s style would translate cleanly to the current league. The Hall of Fame center, who won three straight titles under Jackson with the Lakers, pointed to the coach’s demand for total focus as a tough sell in this era.
“I don’t think Phil would work in this era, ’cause Phil’s thing had a lot to do with just all-out concentration. And I think this era is a little bit all over the place.”
It’s a striking take from someone who lived through Jackson’s system at the highest level. O’Neal saw firsthand how a demanding structure could turn elite talent into a machine.
Kevin Durant, also on the podcast, didn’t exactly disagree with the idea that modern basketball looks different. But he made the case that Jackson’s fingerprints are still all over the kind of offense the Warriors used during their run under Steve Kerr.
“What I will say, Steve Kerr implemented some of the triangle with us with Golden State, and we moved off the ball. A lot of stuff that we was doing was what the Lakers and the Bulls was doing.”
Durant then laid out the balance that defined that Golden State offense: freedom on one end, structure on the other.
“But we definitely play way more random basketball. Like, Shaq’s era, and then they play back, every play was called.
Steph might come down and just pull as soon as you come across half court, or I might do the same, or Klay, without even calling a play sometimes. You know what I’m saying?”
“But we also might run a set all the way through. We hit the post, and we back cut, and we hit a guy coming off a pin-down. That’s the Phil side of it, and we put in the streetball side of it.”
Durant’s point was less about nostalgia and more about fit. He argued that the Warriors blended the old-school structure Jackson favored with the kind of freedom that suited their scorers.
He also pushed back on the idea that modern basketball is simply more talented or less disciplined than what came before.
“I wouldn’t say it was higher or lower. I would say that we have more guys that handle the basketball and shoot outside of three-point lines. So in order for them to play to their strengths, you need to play more of a free-flowing style of basketball.”
That’s the key distinction in Durant’s view: the offense should match the personnel. If players are built to create, shoot, and attack in space, the system has to give them room to do it.
Even so, Durant stressed that playoff basketball still demands more than one gear.
“You need to switch attacks, though. We need to switch attacks, though.
We can’t just play one way. We gotta play two or three ways.
That’s why the great teams win. They play two or three different ways.”
“Shaq and them can play fast, but they also throw that motherfucker down there to the post now. But we can still play fast.”
Shaq’s concern about concentration makes sense. Jackson’s offense asked players to stay locked in even when the ball wasn’t in their hands.
But Durant’s comments made the case that the principles behind that system never really went away. The names and the tempo changed, but the mix of movement, spacing, passing, and reads still matters.
The bigger takeaway from the podcast was simple: the best teams don’t live in one style. They can be organized and loose, structured and unpredictable, all in the same game.
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