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Jackson continues to win them over
By Scott Howard-Cooper
Special to ESPN.com
Phil Jackson is closing in on vindication and a ring.
Check that.
|  | | Phil Jackson didn't blink when staring down the team's midseason issues. |
Another ring. Just open a jewely store already and
be done with it.
Vindication has proven slightly more elusive. He antagonizes cities and
teams, so people can't wait to give him attitude right back, poking fun at
Jackson for having the audacity to go from coaching Michael Jordan and
Chicago to Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant and Los Angeles, rather than go
for the big challenge and try to take a team from the lottery to the Finals.
(Yeah, because all the critics would have passed on the Lakers to land the
Hawks or Nuggets, right?) He has had future Hall of Famers -- the only debate
in five years on Bryant and O'Neal is where they rank among the greatest
players ever at their positions -- so people figure he should win. That's not
just a Jackson thing. Pat Riley faced the same thing in the same city during
the Showtime years. Like they're well-paid hood ornaments.
But there is no denying it this time.
Jackson has done a great coaching job with the Lakers because of what he
did when a strong coach was needed most.
Nothing.
When O'Neal and Bryant were at war, it was fashionably knee jerk to demand
that Jackson get in there and fix things, seeing as managing personalities
was one of his strengths. At least people got that part right.
In the end, Jackson did nothing and he did right. When the tension level
was high, he laid low.
He said he didn't even want to be in the same room as his two superstars
then, let alone broker a peace treaty. Jackson knew. Neither was open to
reconciliation at the time and to have done a poor bandage job on the wounds
meant they might only open up again later.
The best solution was none at all.
That opinion comes without apology now because it was also the stance at
the time, in mid-January, in what was either the winter of their discontent or
the nuclear winter. Like we said back then:
"Let's hear it for Phil Jackson, because we haven't heard anything from
Phil Jackson in the way of a resolution.
"No public mediation.
"No spinning about how a little venting every now and then is a good
thing.
"No signs of attempted diplomacy.
"Doesn't even want them in the same room right now, he says.
"Perfect, we say."
And:
"O'Neal is too busy being angry and hurt. Bryant is too busy not caring
what people think. You've seen times during games when a team will be on the
wrong side of a big scoring run and the coach won't call timeout because he
wants them to find a way to fight through it? That's what this is. OK, so
it's the future course of an entire cornerstone franchise at stake and not a
game (details, details), but you get the idea."
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“ |
We know this is Phil's best coaching job, as far as I'm concerned. I think the Lakers became the best
defensive team in the league the last 20 games of the regular season and the
playoffs. ” |
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— Larry Brown ,
Philadelphia coach |
The review is not so much for a pat on the back as to point out this is
not being a backseat sportswriter now that O'Neal and Bryant are making nice
and the Lakers are making tracks for a repeat. Jackson handled it properly at
the time, and almost no one thought so. His latest success in ego management
serves as a reminder of his impact on the sidelines, and everyone should say
so.
"We know this is Phil's best coaching job, as far as I'm concerned,"
Philadelphia coach Larry Brown said. "I think the Lakers became the best
defensive team in the league the last 20 games of the regular season and the
playoffs."
Said Ron Harper, a player under Jackson in Chicago and Los Angeles: "It
was on him. They were like 'Phil, he should go say this or go hand that guy
this book.' No. Being grown men who got egos, they may hit sometimes. That's
all. It's good, I think."
For Jackson?
"For our team," Harper said. "For our whole basketball team."
That much has been proven out. The Lakers steamrolled through the end of
the regular season, swept the Trail Blazers, swept the Kings, swept the Spurs
and then took a 2-1 lead over the 76ers in a Finals that quickly provided a
better confrontation than most expected and the coaching comparisons that
were inevitable.
Phil Jackson. The guy who fell into the Bulls and rode MJ's back to so
many rings that he could use them as coasters at the next party, then was
handed the keys to this Laker machine that should only should have been given
to James Bond for the next film. He cracks on a few cities, rolls out the
balls, crosses his legs on the bench and watch the troops parade back with
another head on the stick. Nothing to it.
Larry Brown. The guy with a history of successful reclamation projects,
and of success in general, a lifer who is one of the smartest and most
endearing coaches around because of his heart-on-a-sleeve approach and who
some day will be just as happy teaching the motion offense to his high school
team as he is in the middle of a hotly contested NBA Finals. A coach's coach.
It's such an interesting comparison.
It's also such a bunch of non-Chicago bull.
To Jackson's credit, he doesn't try to sell himself as false goods. He
knows he does not have the same makeup as Brown, as someone who would be
great developing young talent and taking the hits that would come along.
Jackson is a closer. He knows it. He proves it.
"The year I sat out in retirement, I talked to a number of clubs," he
said. "I had to think about what it would be like to take a team that is in a
franchise situation where they are in the top of the draft, potentially would
lose 60 games in a year, and how it would feel to be coaching in a situation
where you know you are going to go out night after night and not be able to
support what you have to do as a basketball club because you are short
personnel for maybe a year, maybe for two years.
"That did not appeal to me at all. I felt like having been through so many
of those games over the course of my career that my expertise is probably in
taking teams to the next level that are good teams. That might be what I have
to understand about myself. Not about rebuilding or reading personnel or
beating the bushes with foreign players or finding a way to beat the salary
cap and all those other things that go into building a franchise to the point
where you have the personnel to win. It's not about coaching. You've got
to have players. That was something that I understood that was the
opportunity I wanted and took it."
He earned that right because of the success in Chicago, before he came to
Los Angeles and, so far, did the same thing. It's like the vindication. He
has it coming.
Scott Howard-Cooper covers the NBA for the Sacramento Bee and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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