He's Ahead in His Harris Poll

By SCOTT HOWARD-COOPER

May 22, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Ann Harris says, “Yeah, it does wear at him, I have to admit that. The negative stuff. Definitely.” But she is wrong.

“Your wife can’t always interpret what you’re feeling,” says her husband, the coach of the Lakers. “I have never been beat down, I can tell you that.”

Then the close friend is wrong.

“I think Del is a bit taken with the difficult expectations,” Rick Majerus says.

And the boss is wrong.

“When someone starts rumors and the press runs with it, it’s awful,” Jerry West says. “It’s awful for the people around him, it’s awful for him.”

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

“Nobody’s beat me down,” Del Harris says. “My record speaks for itself. I don’t need all that.”

Wrong.

Coach of the year for 1994-95, his first season with the Lakers after previous stints in Houston and Milwaukee. Four consecutive seasons with an improved record in Los Angeles, the first time that has happened in franchise history. A trip to the Western Conference finals, his second, and the first for this organization since 1990-91. Sixty-one wins in the just-completed regular season despite going 22 games without a superstar, Shaquille O’Neal, and 18 without an all-star, Nick Van Exel. Recognition from his peers as one of the sharpest basketball minds.

“And I’m 17th in the history of the game [in wins], 21st in playoff victories,” Harris jumps in. “The head-to-head with George Karl. What are we now, 17-8 or something? I’m 20-something games over .500 against the six active coaches that have won more games than I have.

“It is frustrating sometimes, I will say, when you look at my record against the other recognized great coaches and find out that my record is better than theirs head to head. Sometimes, I find myself having to answer questions that are obviously rather condescending types of questions. Other than winning a championship, I’ve done about everything that any coach in the league has done in the history of the league.

“The negative of it is, it keeps you where you’re still down on the bottom of the salary scale, nobody wants you to come and give a talk, nobody wants you to do a commercial. I get no talks. There’s nothing.

“L.A.’s the place where there are other opportunities to pick up outside income and this and that. But those opportunities have not been available to me because the aura has not been positive enough to some degree to allow that. And yet, in the past, I had done a lot of public speaking. I am an ordained minister. I can speak.”

He can speak very well. Those close know him to be the life of a party, telling jokes and so genuinely friendly and personable that you’d swear this couldn’t be the same guy who has been trying to beat the Dull Harris rap for years. And, yes, he really is a minister, with the Christian Church since 1958.

He can also speak very much. NBA practices not being the best place to go longer than winter, Harris sometimes practically tortured his Bucks with speeches. It would years ago have also become the same running joke with the Lakers except that it has instead become a genuine sore spot, his current players sometimes desperate for workouts that are just that and not tests of their ability to constantly go from zero to 40 in 9.36 seconds.

“We’re so young, we have a lot of energy, we just want to run, and he’s an older guy who’s been around a lot,” said the youngest of the young, Kobe Bryant. “We have a lot to learn and he has a lot to tell us.”

So both sides carry on and search for the compromise. The relationship is not ideal--no players would say they wanted Harris to stay when reports circulated in early March that he was about to be fired. On the other hand, they could have lain down for a few games and pushed the rumors toward reality, but continued to play hard, which indicates they weren’t in that much of a hurry to get rid of him.

Maybe the true motivation for players was their own pride. Either way, it became another in what has seemingly become a coaching era with more issues than some magazines.

“I think that part’s hard,” Ann Harris said. “It’s not like he’s in Milwaukee or some city where the media attention isn’t worldwide. We know that from the web site [https://www.delharris.com]. People write in from Malaysia and Indonesia. People write in from all over the world and know him. I think there were a few times over the last few years when he thought, ‘Maybe I don’t want to go into work today.’ But I guess that goes with the territory.

“You could see it in his face and just feel it in his overall being. You know when somebody’s having fun or not and there were a lot of times when it wasn’t any fun for him, I know that.”

There have been the injuries.

The run-ins with his point guard on national television.

The constant speculation among fans and the media about his job status.

The players denying they had voted for the firing, but not really coming to his defense.

The 19-year-old returning shouts of instruction with a hand motion to chill.

The missing, by one game, of the chance to coach the Western Conference all-stars when four Lakers went, an obvious emotional setback at the time that was compounded when the team struggled at the start of the second half.

“That was the most down period I’ve had,” Harris said. “It wasn’t when the New York people came out that I was going to be out of here. That actually did more to pick me up. That aroused my competitive urges more.”

His charge into the team history books--he and Pat Riley are the only coaches in the Los Angeles era with three consecutive 50-win seasons--has often been more like a walk through a minefield. He was the anti-Laker coach from the start (professorial, compared to the youthful look of Riley, Mike Dunleavy and Randy Pfund) and, despite a .665 winning percentage in the four years, has been playing catch-up with public perception ever since.

He should have been fired last season. He should have been fired after last season. He should have been fired in March. He should be fired if elimination comes against the Jazz in a landslide, with a sweep or a five-game series that includes another really bad showing beyond the Game 1 debacle. His life as the coach who went 0-21 while the Lakers rolled to 61-0 and clearly reached the conference finals in spite of him.

“I don’t know, because I don’t listen to it,” Harris said of the negative voices. “And I don’t really care. What I want them to do is recognize what the team has done. I don’t think you’ve ever heard me try to speak up for me. I’m always trying to defend a Robert Horry or the team’s defense. I want the team to get recognition. I want them to have satisfaction.

“I’m not looking for anything except a championship, to tell you the truth. That’s all I really care about right now. I don’t care about this article, I don’t care about what they say or don’t say. It doesn’t matter.”

Problems begin because his strength is also his weakness.

“He’s a kind person,” said Majerus, coach at the University of Utah and Harris’ closest friend in the business. “If he has a fault, he’s too nice a guy.”

And too sensitive for his own good. Harris will swear he rarely reads the paper, but somehow he knows everything that has been written about his team. Going for motivation, or an us-against-the-world attitude, he often tells players what reporters have written about them. The diplomatic ones appreciate the attempt to light a fire; most just have some version of rolling their eyes.

“I think sometimes he loves this game so much and wants to win so bad that he gets too uptight,” Horry said. “You just have to relax sometimes.”

Added Van Exel this week: “Today, he was great. But when the pressure starts building up sometimes you never know.

“He’s just like me. You never know what kind of mood he’s going to be in.”

And sensitive enough that people should appreciate the genuine goodness within? This is the same guy who anguished over Magic Johnson’s HIV announcement in November 1991 and became depressed, even though the two had no special connection at the time. Who lived the Gulf War, transfixed on the television updates, even though he didn’t have any friends or family serving, and became even more depressed. Who a month ago, as the team bus was pulling away from practice during the Palm Desert mini-camp, told the driver to stop because he spotted a boy crying off to the side, and got out just to ask what was wrong and sign an autograph.

Who has coached a team to the Western Conference finals without feeling the same outpouring in return from the public.

As if that mattered to him or anything.

“Again,” Del Harris said, “as Pollyanna-ish as it sounds, the only credit I’m looking for is getting that ring. That’s going to be credit enough for me. As you know, I’m a stats guy. I look at our team’s stats and they mean something. I look at my own stats and I think, ‘You’ve done all right.’ I don’t care what people say. That’s the bottom line.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Del by the Numbers

VICTORIES*

1. Lenny Wilkens: 1,120

2. Pat Riley: 914

3. Larry Brown: 655

4. Jerry Sloan: 639

5. Chuck Daly: 605

6. Del Harris: 550**

WINNING %*

1. Phil Jackson: .738

2. Pat Riley: .703