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 Monday, November 1
Jackson tries to bring Bulls' brilliance to Lakers
 
Associated Press

  Slipping into a limo, Phil Jackson looks the part of the mogul on the move with his trim gray beard, dapper suit, granny glasses and laptop computer powered up so he can punch in stock trades as the chauffeur whisks him from the airport.

The image in the TV commercial is not so different from his image at courtside, except that here Jackson reverts a bit to the kid in him, sticking his fingers in his mouth and letting loose shrill whistles to get his players' attention.

These days Jackson is whistling more often than he used to in Chicago, while his new team, the Los Angeles Lakers, tries to learn the system the Bulls perfected to win six NBA championships in his nine years.

Gone from the game for a year after the acrimonious and, he says, premature breakup of the Bulls, Jackson is back with a 5-year, $30-million deal and aiming to prove he can win a title without Michael Jordan.

Jackson's challenge with the Lakers is to turn soloists into a tight, harmonious band, to create a dynamic unit out of a motley collection of underachieving stars who often seemed leaderless and chaotic under coaches Del Harris and Kurt Rambis.

Jackson hasn't found it easy so far. Kobe Bryant broke his right hand a couple of weeks ago and will miss the first month of the season. Travis Knight sprained his right ankle and will miss at least the first week of the season. The Lakers are still looking for a solid power forward to allow 36-year-old A.C. Green to slide into a backup role.

From his first no-nonsense practice, Jackson let the Lakers know he would work them hard but give them a winning plan.

"It's like being at a boot camp with this general guy that you always see on TV beating people up," Shaquille O'Neal said. "You know if you don't want to get in trouble, just keep your mouth quiet."

And O'Neal kept quiet, except to say "everybody was focused, everybody is willing to learn."

Even as Jackson watched his players run around as if they had blindfolds on, trying to figure out where they should be in his triangle offense, he showed his patience and humor and began winning the respect of the players.

"He's a funny guy," Bryant said. "He'll be serious, then all of a sudden he'll just say something weird. If you mess it up, he'll definitely tell you. If you're doing a good job, he'll pat you on the butt."

Maybe it was the offense, maybe it was Jackson's presence, but Derek Fisher quickly saw better chemistry among his teammates.

"I don't think it was that guys on our team didn't want to commit to being on the same page, but I don't think we ever really had a page to follow," Fisher said. "Our coaching staff has presented something for us to follow and everybody's following it right now."

In an interview with The Associated Press on the brink of the season-opener, Jackson spoke about his belief that he could have taken the Bulls to another championship last year if they hadn't been busted up. He talked about how long he thinks the Lakers will take to jell this year, how Bryant's early absence will affect the team, and the not-so-farfetched possibility that the Lakers might even sign Dennis Rodman again.

Jackson spoke slowly and softly, reflecting in his tone the insight and intelligence that Jordan and the Bulls came to respect throughout their championship years.

AP: The hardest thing to do in sports is to build a winning team and keep it going. It seemed so dumb that the problems in Chicago between the owner, the general manager and you led to your departure and then, ultimately, Michael's and Scottie's and everybody else. Did it strike you that way, that there was something lost that should have been saved?

Jackson: We always wondered how long we could keep it going. We kind of put a limitation on the numbers of years that we thought we could keep this juggernaut afloat, and I think maybe we mistimed it. We thought maybe they couldn't play past 35, 36. That maybe Scottie, with a couple of back surgeries, at age 33 would be in decline. And Rodman couldn't play past 36. And we put an age limitation on the capabilities of what those players in this day and age could do. And from that standpoint I think that the organization, and the coaching staff included in that, didn't push hard enough to keep it going. In the overall concept of what dynasties are, this was a dynasty that was very unusual.

AP: Did you feel you could have won at least another year?

Jackson: In a 50-game season last year? It would have been easy. That was kind of a no-brainer last year, because there wasn't a whole lot of training camp for anybody. It was just like, if we've got a good team, stick with it. I do think, given the team totally intact that we had before, it would have been real easy for them to come back and play well.

AP: Would you have liked to see that team stay together until it was obvious that they couldn't win anymore? Why not take it to the end?

Jackson: Well we thought we had, basically. The enthusiasm for management to start rebuilding, getting the right temperament in rebuilding, kind of skewed our notion of where we had to go with it. The owner two, three times in the offseason asked me if I would return. But I thought we had done too much to destroy our team and relationship at that time so it wasn't a possibility for me to go on back and continue it. And then given the year that the NBA had last year, it was the right thing and it happened the right way. We can look back at that team as a unique team, a special team of the '90s, and enjoy what it was, maybe bemoan the fact that it didn't have a natural death. But even so, I think everybody was able to move on with their lives and really be proud of what they had done. AP: Were you close to going to the New York Knicks?

Jackson: No, we had just one preliminary talk. New York was in ninth place, or tied for eighth place at that particular juncture of the season with a week and a half left. It was just an introductory talk and we tabled it until their season was over. So there wasn't anything substantial.

AP: What impact will Kobe's injury have on him and the rest of the Lakers as you introduce a new offense?

Jackson: One of the good things about it is it's going to give Kobe an opportunity to learn in a different format. He's going to have to sit and watch. We're going to have to be able to nurture his growth as a guard and the way he fits into the offense. Physically he's going to be in fine shape. So we don't anticipate it's going to delay him.

As a team it's put us under some duress because we don't have a legitimately experienced backup two-guard. We have some players who are adjustable in Rick Fox, and a young kid in Sam Jacobson. Obviously, acquiring Ron Harper helps us right now in getting someone who can play that two-guard spot, know the position and know the offense. But at this point in his career, Ron's not a 35- or 40-minute man. He's a guy I think of as averaging 25, maybe 30 minutes. So we've got real gap there that's going to hurt us for a while.

AP: How long does it take for a team to learn the triangle offense, and why would it take longer for that than other systems?

Jackson: It's an offense that requires a knowledgeable sense of where you are on the court at all times. It's very easy in most NBA offenses to designate a screen and roll, an isolation, a post-up, a two-man type game, possibly three-man type game that are generic to the game of NBA basketball that players are familiar with. But this game provides that all five players have to participate in the offense all the time. There's never a down period in this offense. And it just takes one person not functioning to really create a bit of havoc on the court.

AP: So would you say it will take half a season or a full season for them to really learn it?

Jackson: There's a lot of learning that goes on. The players play in this learning mode, which means that they're thinking and playing instead of reacting. That's the critical mass there, to really play inside the system. The familiarity takes perhaps a month or two, and then you begin to see the nuances and the subtleties of it. By January this team should be functioning pretty well.

AP:Is there a risk in trying to recreate the same style that the Bulls played in, because the Lakers are center-oriented more than guard- and forward-oriented like the Bulls?

Jackson:The offense takes on the personality of the players that are in it, like any offense will. The offense really is a system that is designated for a post-up player. A guy like Shaq really helps this kind of an offense. His ability to pass is going to be very good. It's going to be exciting to see this offense with a different look.

What we did a lot of times with this offense was we created spacing for guys like Michael and Scottie Pippen, so that they had operating room on the weak side on the back side of the offense. It created a lot of different types of operations for those guys because our center was in and out of the post, rather than being positioned in the post-up. To get their type of game going was really critical to scoring points with the Bulls.

This offense works best with a post-up player on the court. In talking with Shaq about it I told him the premier player in this offense was Wilt Chamberlain with the '66-'67 Philadelphia 76ers when he averaged close to nine assists a game and led the league in assists. That's what this offense did for that team, which won 68 games that year. It really benefits the whole team being able to place the ball into the enemy's territory, which is the post in the heart of the defense.

AP:That was the year Chamberlain really made the switch from offensive scorer to passer and rebounder. Do you look for that kind of change from Shaq as well?

Jackson:No, I don't see that dramatic a change. You have to remember that Chamberlain was coming down from 40-50 points to 35 and then to 25. Maybe 24.5 that year. That's what we'd like to see Shaq doing, scoring 25 points a game and getting six assists. That's the kind of thing we'd like to see in this offense.

AP:What else do you expect from Shaq as far as his contribution on the floor and off the floor?

Jackson:I think that the leadership role will come to him naturally. That's one of the things maybe he's going to have to provide with Kobe out. Because the two of them together give you a certain sense of dynamics, power, the inside-outside threat, the driver and the post-up power player. And without Kobe, we're going to be relying upon Shaq to provide that kind of leadership. That's going to be interesting for him because he's going to have to get things done in a critical part of the game if we're going to be successful early on in the season.

AP:Have you seen that kind of receptiveness there?

Jackson:Yeah. He's really willing. He really wants to flesh out the best part of his game. I think he's come a long ways. The next scenario for him is to become a somewhat reliable free throw shooter so that he can be the guy the team can go to down the stretch without having the fear of loss of points because he might make one or might not make any free throws. That's where he's got to make a change.

AP:And Kobe, when he comes back, what are you looking for from him?

Jackson:Kobe shows that ability to find his way into a game and to have an impact on the game and find a way to score. But really we see him as a player who's going to be not just an individual player but a person who really opens up the team game. The opportunity this type of game gives to him is he can really become that type of player that's not just a scoring threat, not just a dramatic one-on-one player, but also a player that can bring the level of play up by assisting his teammates, organizing the offense, reading the defense, doing the things that give a team a really dramatic impact as only a star can.

AP:He's still so young (21), yet he's been compared with Jordan and with other great players. Do you see him developing into that level of ballplayer?

Jackson:Well, the jury's still out on that. This is Kobe's fourth year. He's had some great years even as a young player in this league. He's shown that he'll be a star. He's an attractive player for people to watch. The next aspect is to bring in his all-around game as a defensive player. Of course, Kobe's active, and he does things that are exciting, going for steals. But now he's got to learn how to be kind of a stopper player, a player that people don't want to go at because of his ability to change the course of the game with his defense. To help his teammates with defensive abilities and all those other things are going to be earmarks as to whether he's going to enlarge his career.

AP:What are your biggest challenges for this team, for individual players, and for yourself?

Jackson:The challenge is to give this team a basis on which to play around. The offense itself is a confidence builder, an organizer for players out on the floor. The coach is the one who gets them to a place where they can take the bit in their mouth and kind of take it upon themselves to run the game. That is why it is so important for a team to have the confidence that they can be out on the court themselves, figure out what the problem is, find the solution and execute without the push and pull of a coach that has to make calls and has to do things that create an intrusion into the flow of a game. That's one of the things that they have to find. They have to find their own lead and their own leaders out there. I think they were a team that really didn't have a leader on the court during critical parts of the game, and it was obvious in the last two playoffs. This is their growth point.

AP:You still have a hole at power forward, as opposed to having that as a strength as you did in Chicago. What are your plans there?

Jackson:We've got a real good guy in A.C. Green. He's a good player, he's been in a championship mode, he's got that kind of drive and hustle and spirit that we need. He's also a good worker. I don't know how many minutes that we can rely on A.C. at age 36. But he's in great shape, and I think that he can do a lot of things for this team.

But we're in a conference with great power forwards, (Vin) Baker and (Karl) Malone and (Chris) Webber and (Kevin) Garnett, more than a handful that stand out in this Western Conference. It's obvious we don't have that kind of a name or dramatic player in that position. But we think if we get defense out of that position that'll be enough.

AP:Are you and Jerry West still trying to make a deal for that spot?

Jackson:We're just going to stay tuned to what can possibly be.

AP:You're not going for Dennis Rodman again, are you?

Jackson:Haven't talked to Dennis, but I'm not ruling out that it's never going to happen.

AP:So if it worked out and he ready to play, you would see no problem taking him back?

Jackson:We're a team that needs to develop our own roles in leadership, need to kind of settle into a lot of things that go along with a new offense, a new coach, new team players, new system, new building -- there's a lot of newness here for the Lakers this year. And once things settle in and we try to get a rhythm and the roles become defined for the players, then we'll assess how we are and what our potential is with the personnel we have. AP:How do you think the team has responded to your personal style so far? Have you made any reading suggestions for them yet?

Jackson:No, really, we're just beginning as far as chemistry and the relationship between coaches and players. So that's interesting right now, to just kind of watch and see what happens, get to know the players, learn who they are, be able to make some kind of suggestions. I definitely want to try to get to these players as people.