Cleamons In, Rodman Probably Isn’t

On the day the Lakers named Jim Cleamons as the first assistant on Phil Jackson’s staff, Jackson issued a doubtful prognosis on the potential re-signing of Dennis Rodman.

He did not completely close the door to the flamboyant rebounder, but Jackson suggested that perhaps the time had come and gone for the Rodman-Laker relationship, especially after Rodman’s nerve-rattling 23-game tenure last season.

“I’m not thinking about it seriously, to be honest with you,” Jackson said Wednesday, when asked if he was interested in acquiring Rodman, a valuable member of Jackson’s last three Chicago Bull championship teams but a combustible part of last season’s fragile Laker campaign.

“I’m not not thinking about it. I’m just looking at the situation that was here last year and anticipating how this team can move on.

“I think they have to move forward, move past some things that happened last year that didn’t bode well, so maybe it’d be like going backwards a little bit.”

Jackson also said that, with Executive Vice President Jerry West out of town, there was nothing new to report on the possible acquisition of another big-name former Bull, Scottie Pippen.

Before last week’s draft, several sources said that the Houston Rockets had, at least temporarily, turned down a discussed deal with the Lakers that would have sent Glen Rice and Robert Horry to Houston for Pippen, who was in Chicago for all six Bull titles.

“We haven’t talked about that any further than I think it got in the newspapers,” Jackson said. “Obviously, we had to discuss some personnel things. That stuff we’ll kind of keep to ourselves.”

How much could Pippen’s presence assist the Lakers in Jackson’s triangle offense?

“It helps,” Jackson said. “It’s not a need. But it really helps a lot.”

For now, Cleamons, who agreed to a multiyear deal, will start his tenure as coach of the Lakers’ summer league team, which includes both of last week’s draft picks, Devean George and John Celestand, and four players from last season’s team, Travis Knight, Sam Jacobson, Tyronn Lue and Ruben Patterson.

Cleamons, 49, a player on the Lakers’ 1971-72 NBA championship team, was on staff for Jackson’s first seven seasons--and four titles--in Chicago before leaving in 1996 to coach the Dallas Mavericks.

“In Chicago, Jim was basically in charge of doing a lot of the practice work and a lot of the execution of our offense,” Jackson said. “It’s very important for him to be here.”

Cleamons joked that he flew into L.A. from his Chicago-area home on Tuesday and was already at work Wednesday, running the summer team through a get-to-know-the-triangle practice session.

The Lakers will play their first summer league game Friday night at the Long Beach Pyramid.

Jackson said that the team probably would announce a second assistant coach by the weekend--it probably will be Jimmy Rodgers, another former Bull staffer--and that he would hold a spot open for Tex Winter, a longtime Bull assistant.

“Of course I’m interested in him,” Jackson said of Winter, who is credited with popularizing the triangle offense. “But I want him to make a choice that’s his choice.”

Laker Note

Chick Hearn, 82, the team’s broadcaster for 34 years, signed a new two-year contract and will build on his streak of having called 3,114 consecutive Laker games.