had him sit in on coach's meetings and chart statistics from the bench during games. The gesture, Walton said, and Jackson's guidance meant "everything" to him. Walton didn't know it at the time, but Jackson's move gave Walton his first major exposure to NBA head coaching, a priceless internship under the game's most successful coach and a daily tutorial on how Jackson's mind worked strategically.
"I do think Luke has a similar personality to Phil http://www.officialauthenticsaintstore.com/womens_garrett_grayson_jersey in that he is a coach that stays in the moment, you don't see him get too emotionally high or too emotionally low," Pelinka said. "He has a presence. He has a lot of confidence, but yet he approaches things with calmness, which is an enduring quality." Walton is employing some of Jackson's methods, but with a 2017 spin on it. Pelinka introduced Walton to a meditation and mindfulness app company called "Headspace." The app guides its customers through sessions as short as three minutes, allowing 20-something NBA stars who might have a short attention span to meditate even on the way to a game. Once a month, Headspace co-founder Andy Puddicombe visits the Lakers' film room on a game day, dims the lights and conducts a 15-minute meditation session while the players attempt to enter a state of relaxation in their plush chairs. The goal is to train their mental game by concentrating on eight areas -- motivation, focus, training, competition, communication, analysis, recovery and rehabilitation -- to get them relaxed but in an active state of readiness on game day. Walton hopes an app like this can help players cope with the pressures they face in today's social-media-driven Jakub Voracek Youth jersey world. "That is a whole different realm that no other generation of NBA player has ever had to deal with," Lakers rookie Kyle Kuzma said. Puddicombe, who spent 10 years training to become a monk in Burma and Tibet, has worked with the British Olympic team, professional athletes and pro teams. Puddicombe worked with the Whitney Mercilus Jersey New York Knicks the past two seasons when Jackson ran the franchise as team president. While Jackson failed to build a winner in New York and seemed out of touch with players such as Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis, Walton still uses some time-tested Jackson techniques to keep his team engaged and his message fresh. Jackson used to love incorporating movie themes and scenes into game tape to break up the monotony of film sessions. During the Lakers' training camp this fall, Walton borrowed that Authentic Jorge Soler Jersey method, using a scene from Denzel Washington's "Man on Fire" to drill his team into running more. Washington is training Dakota Fanning http://www.footballseahawksprostore.com/Tyler-Lockett-Jersey to start swim races faster by honing in on the sound of the starting pistol, using http://www.officialbluejaysproshop.com/Roy_Halladay_Jersey two wooden blocks to simulate the gun sound. Preaching to the team to run off makes and misses, Walton had the team watch the clip of Washington training Fanning and then had Lakers assistant coach Jesse Mermuys smash two wooden blocks against each other, just like Washington, to signal the players to run in practice. "[Jackson] has been a pretty big influence on me," Walton said. "Last year I tried a bunch to not call timeouts and let the guys figure it out like he used to do with us. I have gotten softer at it. In the middle of the game, Phil's thing was he used to love that you guys are in this mess, figure a way to get yourself out. We would either lose by 20 or have to come together on the court and figure out how to stop the bleeding." While much of Walton's approach comes from the Jackson portfolio, Richard Jefferson, Walton's longtime friend and former teammate at Arizona, said the Lakers coach is more like his father. "Oh, he is a hippie," Jefferson said. "Make no mistake, that is Bill Walton's son out there. Say what you want about Phil and Steve, he grew up calling his dad Bill. All you have to do is look at his dad. So when you start seeing the new-wave stuff, don't just think that is from Phil Jackson." Like his free-spirited, tie-dyed father, Luke has not been afraid to speak his mind on issues, such as voicing his opinion during the preseason on why it was important for his team to lock arms as a show of solidarity during the national anthem. "My dad taught me and my brother since we were a young age to always question authority," Walton said. "It is not being a bad kid. It is doing what is right because you either need to understand what is going on or make changes for the better. That is kind of the mindset we were raised with as kids."