A power forward, Jackson played 12 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), winning championships with the New York Knicks in 1970 and 1973.

[2] Jackson is known for his use of Tex Winter's triangle offense as well as a holistic approach to coaching that was influenced by Eastern philosophy, garnering him the nickname "Zen Master".

Jackson cited Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as one of the major guiding forces in his life.

Jackson attended high school in Williston, North Dakota, where he played varsity basketball and led the team to a state title.

[9] His brother Chuck speculated years later that the three Jackson sons threw themselves passionately into athletics because it was the only time they were allowed to do what other children were doing.

Fitch took over as head basketball coach at the University of North Dakota in the spring of 1962, during Jackson's junior year of high school.

[8] Bill Fitch successfully recruited Jackson to the University of North Dakota, where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

[8][10] Jackson did well there, helping the Fighting Sioux to third- and fourth-place finishes in the NCAA Division II tournament in his sophomore and junior years (1965 and 1966).

While he was a good all-around athlete, with unusually long arms, he was limited offensively but compensated with intelligence and hard work on defense.

[8] In the 1974–75 NBA season, Jackson and the Milwaukee Bucks' Bob Dandridge shared the lead for total personal fouls, with 330 each.

Reaching the conference finals, they eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers in a tough seven-game series and then won the 2000 NBA championship by beating the Indiana Pacers.

With the talented superstar duo of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, the strong supporting cast of Glen Rice, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox, Devean George, A.C. Green, Robert Horry, and Brian Shaw, and the assistance of former Bulls Horace Grant, Ron Harper, and John Salley, Jackson led the Lakers to two additional titles in 2001 and 2002, against the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, adding up to his third three-peat as head coach.

However, injuries, weak bench play, and public tension between Bryant and O'Neal slowed the team down, and they were beaten in the second round of the 2003 NBA Playoffs by the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs.

[17] In games, Bryant would often disregard the set offense completely to experiment with his own one-on-one moves, infuriating the normally calm Jackson.

Despite these distractions, the Lakers beat the defending champion Spurs en route to advancing to the 2004 NBA Finals and were heavy favorites to regain the title.

Though they achieved some success in the first half of the season, injuries to several players including Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom forced the team out of contention, going 34–48 in 2004–05 and missing the playoffs for the first time in 11 years.

However, the Lakers faced a tough 2006 first-round matchup against the second-seeded Phoenix Suns, who were led by eventual MVP winner Steve Nash.

On December 12, 2007, after announcing he would return to his position as coach just a few days prior, Jackson inked a 2-year contract extension to continue his tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers through the end of the 2009–2010 season.

Boston went on to win the series 4–2, in the process handing Jackson and the Lakers their worst playoff loss ever in Game 6, a 39-point defeat.

On December 25, 2008, Jackson became the sixth coach to win 1,000 games, with the Lakers defeating the Celtics in their first matchup since the last year's finals.

Jackson again coached the Lakers to the NBA Finals in 2009, defeating the Utah Jazz, Houston Rockets, and Denver Nuggets in the process.

[19] On July 1, 2010, Jackson, after giving it tremendous thought and consulting with his doctors over health concerns, announced that he would return to coach the Lakers for the 2010–11 season.

[21] He retired after the Lakers were swept out of the playoffs in the conference semifinals by that season's eventual NBA champions, the Dallas Mavericks, meaning that he would not get a fourth three-peat (after previously achieving that feat in 1993, 1998 and 2002).

[22][23] In his final news conference that season, he noted that he did not have much of a relationship with Jerry or Jim Buss, and said, "When I leave here, I don't anticipate Lakers management will call me up and ask my advice.

[25][26][27][28] They felt D'Antoni's fast-paced style of play made him a "great fit" for the team, more suitable than Jackson's structured triangle offense.

On June 25, 2014, the Knicks traded guard Raymond Felton along with former NBA Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler to the Dallas Mavericks.

In return, the Knicks received Shane Larkin, José Calderón, Samuel Dalembert, and Wayne Ellington along with two picks for the following day's draft.

[41] The speculated reasoning for the parting of ways was Jackson's attempted buying-out of Carmelo Anthony and his very public strife with Porziņģis.

[58] In a 1990 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Jackson said that he did not care for preachers who browbeat the audience, describing his religious views thusly: "I've always liked the concept of God being beyond anything that the human mind can conceive.

[60] In 2020, he was a subject of the documentary miniseries The Last Dance, alongside Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Steve Kerr and Dennis Rodman.