Jackson Sends Finals Into the Background

And so it begins, in the same building where the Lakers as we knew them came to a disappointing end. They are now, officially, certified as the It team in basketball again.

Case in point: Two hours before his team prepared for a must-win Game 3 of the NBA Finals, Detroit Piston Coach Larry Brown met with the media at the Palace of Auburn Hills. The first two questions concerned Phil Jackson.

The signs have pointed to Jackson’s return for a while now, but it still was bizarre to walk down the same corridors where Jackson left the court for what we thought was the last time as Laker coach, only to see a TV monitor showing Jackson addressing the media in L.A. as the Lakers’ new coach.

Just like the Lakers, not Pistons, were the talk of the sports world last June, the Lakers were topic A again this June.

The whole first block on the evening “SportsCenter” concerned the Desperate Franchise. We’ll be back to analyze the Pistons and the Spurs after these messages.

It’s one thing to be talked about at the NBA Finals. It’s quite another to be playing in the NBA Finals -- and hiring Jackson with the Laker roster in its current state won’t accomplish that. It’s like bringing in Eric Gagne to pitch the sixth inning.

Oh, it’ll be great theater. It will attract more fan attention and require more media coverage (including, ahem, ahem, training camp in Hawaii).

But you know what the Lakers just became? Mike Tyson. You’ll tune in for the curiosity factor, not to see a true contender.

Can Jackson and Kobe Bryant coexist after their icy relationship was a major contributor to the breakup of the Lakers and Jackson last year? How can Bryant trust in the coach who trashed him in his book “The Last Season?”

“It depends how much they want to win,” said Robert Horry, who witnessed four years of the relationship with the Lakers. “I think Kobe has as strong a desire to [win] as anybody that I know. If you’re winning, I think it’s going to be all gravy. If they’re losing, it ain’t going to be gravy. It’ll be some yelling and some cursing and some slapping. It’ll be worse than throwing towels, I tell you that.”

Scottie Pippen played for Jackson during Jackson’s entire nine-year run as head coach of the Chicago Bulls. He also battled against Jackson and Bryant in the Western Conference playoffs as a Portland Trail Blazer.

“I think Kobe wants to be successful,” Pippen said. “I think the things that happened to him over the last year and a half have really humbled him a lot. It’s very difficult for him to drop his ego and say that ‘Yes, I really want Phil back’, because he’s a very egotistical kind of person. But at the end of the day, he wants to get back to the top. He wants to get back to the pinnacle of the game. No one really knows who you are during the regular season.

“This is the big stage,” Pippen said, standing a few feet away from the giant Larry O’Brien Trophy decal on the Palace’s court. “This is what it’s about. If he wants to get back here, then he has to make this work with him and Phil.”

Believe it or not, Jackson’s arrival already makes Bryant a winner. It ceases speculation that Bryant’s calling the shots in Lakerland, because we know this wasn’t his choice. And if the Lakers don’t make the playoffs it’s Jackson’s reputation that will take the big hit, not Bryant’s.

Ultimately, that’s the bigger question. Will they win? Will Jackson get the Lakers back to the playoffs. I consider San Antonio, Phoenix, Dallas and Houston locks to reach the playoffs, leaving the Lakers to compete with Denver, Sacramento, Memphis, Utah, Minnesota, the Clippers (yes, Clippers), Golden State (rejuvenated by Baron Davis) and possibly Seattle (depending on how many free agents the SuperSonics re-sign) for the four remaining spots.

Can the presence of Jackson vault the Lakers out of the Pacific Division cellar and into the postseason?

“I definitely think he’ll make them better,” Pippen said. “Phil’s coaching [success] is not an accident. Shaq and Kobe played together for many years before Phil got there, and they didn’t win a championship. Let’s look back and remember that. Phil is a great coach. I do believe that his impact will make them a much better team instantly.”

People fixated on Jackson’s success with Michael Jordan and Bryant and O’Neal forget that he won 55 games with the Bulls the year Jordan abruptly retired before the 1993-94 season.

“Maybe he has finally accepted the challenge,” said Will Perdue, a member of that Bulls’ squad and owner of three Chicago title rings. “If he can somehow get this team over the hump, it will complete Phil Jackson. I don’t know. Then he can truly walk off into the sunset.”

But Perdue isn’t so, uh, bullish on Jackson’s second go-round with the Lakers.

“I don’t quite get it,” Perdue said. “He basically threw Kobe under the bus ... I don’t understand really how that’s going to work.”

Hall of Fame coach Jack Ramsey thought Jackson would coach only a championship contender -- “And I don’t see that in the Lakers,” Ramsey said.

Spur Coach Gregg Popovich said: “The city of Los Angeles should obviously be thrilled and excited. He’s a tremendous coach.”

Popovich didn’t even mind that Jackson was stealing attention from the Finals.

“I think it’s great stuff,” Popovich said. “It’s about the NBA. It’s great.”

Oh, there was one other thing people were talking about here. Pistons 96, Spurs 79. The Spurs lead the series, 2-1. Game 4 Thursday.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/Adande.