Haven’t been there. Haven’t done that.
“I had a team in the CBA that finished .500 one season,” coach Phil Jackson said late Friday night after an eighth loss in 10 games dropped his Los Angeles Lakers to 40-40. “I never missed the playoffs, but that was the toughest year.”
This one is moving up the Jackson list quickly. The newest member of the Basketball Hall of Fame and arguably the game’s most successful coach agrees the Lakers probably need to win their final two games just to make the playoffs after being 13 games above .500 at midseason.
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“I never envisioned this,” Kobe Bryant acknowledged.
Nobody around the Lakers did either, including Jackson, after a revival season last year and a seven-game, opening-round playoff thriller with the Suns. But the Lakers have been crippled with major injuries, and Jackson concedes that if the team wasn’t trying to avoid a playoff death spiral, Lamar Odom and Luke Walton probably wouldn’t be playing with the ankle and shoulder injuries that kept them out major parts of the season.
So the Lakers try to hold it together starting 19-year-old Andrew Bynum, whom they targeted for the D-League before the season, or Ronny Turiaf, returning after heart surgery, and Smush Parker, essentially the first player in Jackson’s 25 years of coaching who has been openly defiant.
Parker has been the “Animal House” kid in the back of the room mumbling under his breath during Jackson talks, derisively saying he gave up trying to read “the man.” After a loss to the Suns last week, Parker remarked how much he enjoyed the game because he scored 25 points.
Kwame Brown, who was so important as the Lakers won 11 of 14 down the stretch last season, seems to be refusing to play. Earlier this season he was accused in what was believed to be the NBA’s first food-fight arrest, when he took a man’s cake and threw it at a teammate. Jackson this week pulled a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and waved it when reporters asked about the indifferent Brown, who didn’t accompany the team.
In the middle of it all, seething in a familiar scene Jackson has seen before, is Bryant, scoring 50 points in a game last week for the ninth time this season, the most times anyone has done that since Wilt Chamberlain in 1964-65.
“He feels like he has had to score to keep us competitive rather than score to help us win,” Jackson said.
Jackson compares it with what he saw from Michael Jordan as a Bulls assistant in 1987 and 1988.
Jordan piled up points and frustrations with a losing team before personnel additions sent the Bulls on a path toward their championships.
Jackson has one season left on his contract and has been discussing an extension with management, which is something of a family affair in that he still dates the owner’s daughter, team executive Jeannie Buss. But Jackson says he wants to determine the direction of the team before making a commitment, and he doesn’t see the owner needing a $10 million coach for rebuilding.
No, Jackson is not taking a pay cut.
But you also can take it to the bank that Bryant isn’t on board for any rebuilding.
“He has been angry,” Jackson said. “He has been challenging his players after games.”
Jackson saw plenty of that in his early years with the Bulls. Bryant and Jordan, meanwhile, have developed an interesting bond over the past year and are often in contact.
Associates say it is challenging, as one might expect knowing their similarly competitive personalities.
Jordan wonders how Bryant would do against the better talent he (Jordan) played against and the rules he played under, including hand-checking that allowed a strong defender like Mitch Richmond to affect his movement.
Jordan, though, didn’t have to face the zones Bryant now sees.
One of my favorite stories involves a pick-and-roll Jordan ran once with Bill Cartwright, who was open at the basket.
Jordan shot.
As they went to the sideline after the play, Cartwright asked Jordan why he didn’t pass. Jordan replied that one of the double-teaming defenders was Fred Roberts. Translation: I can beat my man and him.
Which is why, when Bryant had that remarkable run of 50-point games last month, most of his scoring came on jumpers.
The loss to the Suns on Friday was an example.
The Suns usually double-teamed Bryant on the catch and then dropped another player into a zone. Thus a 93-85 game.
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Not that it ever was easy to average more than 30 points per game, as Jordan did back then, but Jackson’s first message to Jordan when he became head coach in 1989 was that sharing the ball leads to championships, not scoring titles.
Jordan was so good he could do both. That’s Bryant’s challenge.
Bryant is about to win his second straight scoring championship, but it’s not getting Jackson and the Lakers anywhere. As Jordan liked to say way back when, “Pass to who?”
“Kobe is like Michael,” Jackson said. “He can’t take the losing. I’ve enjoyed coaching this team. I worry for them. They are good guys and they have a good time. We’ve had some disheartening losses. I think they’re getting used to it. That’s what bothers me.”
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