2008-09 NBA CHAMPIONS

The winner, and still . . .

Actually, it’s hard to say exactly what Phil Jackson is, at least between NBA championships -- as he was between 2002 and 2009, when he overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

With the Lakers, I mean, not with The Times’ T.J. Simers, although it seemed close at times this spring.

Now that Jackson just made it 10 titles, passing Red Auerbach for the most in NBA history, he’s clearly the best of all time . . . unless you want to lay it off on his players, as all of New England and many more people will always do.

Happily, Jackson doesn’t care what you or I or anyone else thinks, which is a break for him since so many think he’s not just lucky, but a condescending jerk.

Auerbach, of course, had his own issues with manners -- as in having none.

But that was then and this is now.

T.J. dedicated this spring to getting inside Phil’s head, where Phil doesn’t admit anyone, at least without a book contract, as T.J. mentioned once or twice.

T.J. even got to him once or twice, as when Phil bristled at his use of the word “embarrassment” after Game 4 in Houston.

By then, if T.J. had asked if the sun rose in the east, Phil would have said no.

Mostly Phil just smiled his Yoda smile, answered in as few bland words as possible, and made T.J. think up his own stuff.

Persevering to the end, T.J. asked last week about Alonzo Mourning’s claim that Kobe Bryant did “all the work,” while Phil, who didn’t “have to do anything but call timeouts,” was “just showing up.”

This was patent nonsense. If you want to know what Jackson means to Bryant, it was enough to take them beyond their early relationship, which was getting close to Oedipus and his dad, to their current one, which is like Don Vito and Michael Corleone.

So here’s Jackson, who pretty much saved Bryant’s career, which was in pieces after Shaquille O’Neal left, Rudy Tomjanovich fled and they went 34-48 . . . and it’s still not obvious how great Phil is?

Jackson won six titles with the Chicago Bulls when they had Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, had grown up under mercurial Doug Collins and were ready to roll.

On the other hand, the Lakers Jackson took over in 1999 were a zoo.

They had just been swept, 4-0, by San Antonio in the second round, the perfect end to their Dennis Rodman debacle.

They had been swept out of the Western finals in 1998 by the Jazz, 4-0, and before that, the Jazz had beaten them, 4-1, in the second round.

That was your Shaq-Kobe Era when Jackson turned their Wild Bunch into a professional basketball team, dumping young guys such as Ruben Patterson in favor of used-up-looking veterans such as Ron Harper, Brian Shaw and John Salley . . . and won the first of three titles in a row.

After the Shaq-Kobe Era ended in the long-awaited blowup, owner Jerry Buss showed Jackson the door, Rudy T fled, and, as little as Buss was inclined to reverse himself a year later, guess who was coming back to dinner?

You can’t say Jackson turned them around, because that took two pieces of the puzzle -- Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol -- which General Manager Mitch Kupchak went out and got.

Nevertheless, Jackson stabilized them, getting them back in the playoffs in 2006 and 2007, until the cavalry arrived in the nick of time, with Bryant turning on the organization, demanding a trade . . . and, improbably enough, turning back around.

Jackson’s Yoda persona once masked a lot of turmoil, like his long-running feud with GM Jerry Krause in Chicago that finally led him to leave and start a new adventure in Los Angeles, which felt like Mars at first.

I interviewed him for a feature in our magazine at the end of his first season as a Laker, when his new home still didn’t feel like home.

He was joking about thinking up a motif for Los Angeles.

“Maybe the blood and crips?” he suggested.

Maybe not.

Now, the turmoil is gone. He’s so comfortable in his surroundings, and his relationship with Jeanie Buss, he barely gave a thought to the other teams that wanted him when he returned, including the Cleveland Cavaliers, who had LeBron James.

These days, Jackson really is Yoda. So who’s this Alonzo Mourning person again?

Phil (smiling): That’s a pretty good assessment from a guy who played 15 years or so in the NBA.

T.J.: Do you buy it?

Phil (smiling): Kobe is doing a lot of the work. I’m just here kind of sitting on my chair.

If you want to know who Phil Jackson is, that’s it: He’s Phil Jackson, every day of his charmed life.

He gets to coach, which he loves, and without which he’s bored out of his mind. He has a great team, makes $11 million annually and lives on the beach with Jeanie, who also keeps her own place -- or, as Alvy Singer calls Annie Hall’s apartment, “Switzerland.”

Jeanie doesn’t insist on getting married and is cool with Phil’s ex-wife, June, with whom he remains on good terms. The last time June visited, she stayed at Jeanie’s place while Jeanie stayed with Phil.

“I always tell Phil, his kids are the best part of him,” Jeanie said. “And June is the mother of his children, [so] I can’t help but think great things about her. She doesn’t have any issue with me, so how can I have an issue with her?”

To an inner circle of people he’s known for years, Jackson is unassuming and fun to be around.

Of course, there may be only a few hundred of them in the world.

Were he someone whose humility showed, like Tony Dungy, and had won 10 titles, he might be made a saint.

Ten titles later, Phil’s still Phil, but that’s all Phil ever wanted.

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mark.heisler@latimes.com

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BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX

JACKSON’S NBA COACHING RECORD

Phil Jackson’s regular-season win percentage is .710, and his playoff win percentage is .697 (NBA championships in bold):

*--* TEAM SEASON PLAYOFFS FINISH 1989-90 Chicago 55-27 10-6 Lost to Detroit in Eastern Conference finals, 4-3 1990-91 Chicago 61-21 15-2 Beat Lakers in NBA Finals, 4-1 1991-92 Chicago 67-15 15-7 Beat Portland in NBA Finals, 4-2 1992-93 Chicago 57-25 15-4 Beat Phoenix in NBA Finals, 4-2 1993-94 Chicago 55-27 6-4 Lost to New York in Eastern Conference semifinals, 4-3 1994-95 Chicago 47-35 5-5 Lost to Orlando in Eastern Conference semifinals, 4-2 1995-96 Chicago 72-10 15-3 Beat Seattle in NBA Finals, 4-2 1996-97 Chicago 69-13 15-4 Beat Utah in NBA Finals, 4-2 1997-98 Chicago 62-20 15-6 Beat Utah in NBA Finals, 4-2 1999-2000 Lakers 67-15 15-8 Beat Indiana in NBA Finals, 4-2 2000-01 Lakers 56-26 15-1 Beat Philadelphia in NBA Finals, 4-1 2001-02 Lakers 58-24 15-4 Beat New Jersey in NBA Finals, 4-0 2002-03 Lakers 50-32 6-6 Lost to San Antonio in Western Conference semifinals, 4-2 2003-04 Lakers 56-26 13-9 Lost to Detroit in NBA Finals, 4-1 2005-06 Lakers 45-37 3-4 Lost to Phoenix in first round, 4-3 2006-07 Lakers 42-40 1-4 Lost to Phoenix in first round, 4-1 2007-08 Lakers 57-25 14-7 Lost to Boston in NBA Finals, 4-2 2008-09 Lakers 65-17 16-7 Beat Orlando in NBA Finals, 4-1 TOTALS 1,041-435 209-91 *--*