His Way Was the Highway
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-jackson12jul12,1,1493486.story?coll=la-
headlines-sports
His Way Was the Highway
Jackson hits the road with no regrets. "I'm content, I'm happy I left," the
former Laker coach says.
By Tim Brown, Times Staff Writer
Phil Jackson left Los Angeles on Sunday morning, bound for his house on a lake
in Montana.
By late afternoon, his cellphone close by, he felt the urge to say farewell.
"I'm several hundred miles north and east of L.A.," he said. "With one night
in a hotel, I can be at the lake by nightfall tomorrow."
For the next 45 miles or so, broken up by occasional lapses in satellite
signals, he spoke of his five years in Los Angeles, the championships they
won, the relationships that tore at them all, and where they would all be
by, well, nightfall tomorrow.
He wrote a journal of the season that will be published, he said, in the fall.
He finished the manuscript this week and sent it off. He left behind Jeanie
Buss, his love for most of his time here, and they remain a couple, despite
the Nevada highway that flew from beneath his black Mercedes on Sunday.
On June 18, Jackson met for a few minutes with Jerry Buss, Jeanie's father and
the Laker owner. At the end of three NBA titles, countless sellouts at Staples
Center and an era of basketball Los Angeles had never seen, nor will again,
Buss told him he would not return.
Jackson knew it for months.
"I'm content," he said. "I'm happy I left. It looks like the right time to
leave. They wanted to make some moves to accommodate signing Kobe. We knew
they probably wouldn't work if I was coaching the team."
But, he insisted, "I'm not back because I didn't want to come back."
So, he gained on north and east, his successor the day before having called
him "probably the greatest coach to ever coach the game," nine championships
suggesting it is at worst a tie. His record in 14 NBA seasons was 832-316.
He was 175-69 in the postseason. He coached Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'
Neal and Kobe Bryant and countless nobodies into doing something special,
and now he was 58, out of a job, pointed toward a lake.
"I don't anticipate coaching," he said. "I wouldn't rule it out. But I don't
anticipate I will. I may coach a group of AAU kids somewhere. But I'm not
going to solicit an NBA job."
Maybe that's so because there will never be another one like this one. The
Lakers as Jackson knew them are gone, just as he had feared. Bryant still
might return. Jackson thinks he should. But Buss wants to trade O'Neal to
Miami. The triangle will be replaced by Bryant, solo, this time willingly.
The players will change, and the system with them. Before he left, Jackson
shook hands with Buss and told him he would not be taking that vice-
president job because he did not believe in the direction the club had
taken. He made peace with Kobe, as much as he could, and told Shaq to keep
at it.
"You can't replace Shaquille, there's no doubt about that," Jackson said. "
He's a unique player. Los Angeles is going to have to say goodbye to any
chance of being a multiple champion in the near future…. It's a very daunting
task without that force in the middle."
Not even Bryant, 25, free and unbound, he said, would change that.
"That's probably not going to happen," he said. "It's just too difficult to
win without a dominant big guy in the middle."
If true, perhaps they all will recall these five years as the best of their
careers, Jackson for making something of their previous failures, O'Neal and
Bryant for winning in spite of themselves, for their three, almost four
championships, almost together.
As he drove off, Jackson was asked if it went by so fast, if it had all
disappeared so quickly behind him, that it seemed to never have happened.
Soon, he'd be in Montana, and the Lakers wouldn't look like the Lakers, and
training camp would open without him.
"There's always those banners up there on the wall at Staples," he said. "It's
the journey that's important. It's about the relationship that starts with the
first practice and ends with the last game. After that, it's all ethereal
and fleeting. You can hold onto that ring. But you might get a cup of coffee
with that ring. It's the act itself that's the worthwhile thing. That's the
effort that counts."
He gave that to Rick Fox. To Robert Horry. To Derek Fisher. To Mark Madsen. To
so many.
From a few, he said, "I learned that winning doesn't always make people happy.
There's a lot of back-biting and selfishness and ego gratification. It's not
enough for everybody, even when you win, sometimes. I don't know if it's the
price of the NBA itself or the fact it takes such a heavy toll on our lives
that makes it so difficult for all of us."
In February, when Buss announced he had suspended negotiations for Jackson's
contract extension, Jackson knew he would not coach the Lakers beyond this
season. He told Bryant as much, shortly after Bryant had gone public with
his distaste for Jackson off the floor. The two agreed that given a finite
period and a single goal, they might not be able to live with each other,
but they could work together. They lost in the NBA Finals, closer perhaps than
they thought they'd get.
In fact, Jackson said, he'd intentionally, well, sabotaged his early
negotiations with Buss, asking for $10 million or more per season. He needed
time to measure his connection to Bryant, who had been through a difficult
summer after being charged with felony sexual assault, and so already was
thinking five years was enough.
"It's hard for me to describe my relationship with Kobe," Jackson said. "I had
an exit meeting that went really well with him. I wished him well and hoped
he'd find happiness with a team. And happiness playing ball."
Jackson could not say he was worried for Bryant, who will live with what
remains of the Lakers, or leave them. And, then, he will go on trial for rape.
Jackson sounded as though he felt sorry for Bryant, who could not be satisfied
in victory, no matter how complete.
"A championship wasn't enough to make Kobe happy," he said. "I noticed it
wasn't enough. It was OK. It was a notch in his belt. But it wasn't his end
result."
He wishes Bryant would stay.
"That's his decision," he said. "I don't think he'll find any more adoring
fans than he has in L.A. For that reason and others, it's probably best he
stays."
O'Neal was different from Bryant. He wasn't much for the process, but
reveled in the championships, standing amid champagne showers as Bryant sobbed
in the bathroom. While Bryant's anger with Jackson mostly stayed hidden, O'
Neal blasted away in the newspapers. When relayed what O'Neal had said,
usually some alliterative phrase including his first name, Jackson would
grin and chip back, and eventually they'd all laugh. O'Neal believed in
Jackson.
Miffed at Mitch Kupchak and already having demanded a trade, O'Neal once again
skipped his exit meeting. Jackson caught up to him later.
"We cleared a lot of space," Jackson said. "I think we were able to part
with some sense of goodwill and peace. I told him I hoped he finished his
career strong. He thanked me for what we were able to do together."
They lined Buss' window sill with trophies. They filled three fingers with
diamonds. They brushed confetti from their hair and danced on a stage with
half the city, it seemed, dancing with them. They did that together, mostly.
They did it in a way it had never been done before.
"I don't know if I ever felt totally embraced by the organization," Jackson
said. "But I was by the city."
The, uh, organization?
"What kind of relationship would you have if your daughter was romantically
involved with the coach?" he asked. Well, there was that.
Then they failed, and did that singularly, too. They wept. They argued. O'Neal
called it his team, Bryant called O'Neal fat and lazy, and Karl Malone and
Gary Payton stood between them.
In the end, they were three victories short, an injury long, and Jackson's
career, perhaps, ended with him surrounded by his children.
A few days later, Buss made it official. Then he went about building another
kind of team, one that runs and dunks and supports the things that Bryant
does. Lately, it has caused Jackson to wince.
"He decided to go in another direction," he said. "That's up to him, to change
the context of this team. He made up his mind earlier in the year and he was
very comfortable with the direction the team was going to go. I was
disappointed at the way it was executed. It makes the organization look
fumbling.
"We have to dance like all the other teams were dancing. The way to do
things was much simpler. There was a way to do things with grace and elan."
The Lakers, he said, did not have to be broken up. They did not fade away.
They were undone.
"We made the Finals and we weren't healthy," he said. "This still was a pretty
good team. It would have only gotten better. Gary and Karl would have only
gotten better in the system."
So, before he packed his car trunk, before he kissed Jeanie goodbye, he
spoke to the owner one more time. He would not be a vice president. He would
be, well, he wasn't sure, but it definitely wasn't a vice president.
"I felt I was indifferent, diametrically opposed to the direction they were
going, so I thought taking that position wasn't forthright and honest,"
Jackson said. "He said when things settle down, let's talk again in September.
So we will."
Then Phil Jackson was gone, chasing nightfall tomorrow.
"I am satisfied," he said. "I'm in a good place. I enjoyed it. It's time to
step back a little bit, find some other things to do."
--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc)
◆ From: 140.112.50.217
Lakers 近期熱門文章
PTT體育區 即時熱門文章
