Highlights from Phil Jackson's exit press conference

Jackson goes out with the most championships of any NBA coach, the highest winning percentage and the most wins in the playoffs. His teams went to the NBA finals 13 times in 20 seasons. He also goes out as one of the interesting sports figures we've ever had here in L.A. Here are some noteworthy quotes from today's last meeting with the media in El Segundo, culled from the Lakers website and from ESPN LA. You can watch 23 minutes of video at the Lakers site.

"It’s still a good team. It needs to build speed. It needs to have some speed and they get some easy baskets as a group. I think that’s the biggest key in basketball, you have to be able to find a way to score that’s not always in a set offense, not always in the half court offense."
"I'm always relieved when a season's over. This team just had an ability to get in a funk and not be able to resurge and find a common thread and turn things around. I never really had a team like that that couldn't make adjustments and learn from mistakes."
"Some of the musings that I have always had are adventures. I was a kid that liked to read Robinson Crusoe and those types of things. The last time I had a year off I traveled to the South Pacific and enjoyed what I did, even though it was only six weeks. But I realized on that trip that I was not physically capable of doing that tripping and adventure that I'd always hoped to be able to do. So a couple operations later and one still to follow, maybe I'll get back to those kinds of things, the adventure part that I've always liked to imagine I would do. One of my favorites is a guy named Johnny Rodgers who traveled the world east to west and north to south on a motorcycle. Those are the kinds of things that interest me, that are challenges I would've like to have done."
"The strengths that I have are probably about community and about groups, about chemistry on a team. The first time I interviewed for a job as an NBA coach, I was rejected. It was because I didn't know X's and O's. I didn't take Basketball 101 in college, I took other things. But that wasn't always my strength, figuring out how to make the last second play work, or whatever. I felt execution was important. A lot of times, I probably failed at some the strategy things as a coach. There were people that were good at it that were on my staff."