Hiring Jackson Proves Buss Wants Lakers Back in Action

Jerry Buss, Owner

Los Angeles Lakers

Dear Jerry,

Welcome back.

Who was that guy who was running around in your body last season?

Your faithful correspondent,

Mark Heisler

****

Some week, huh?

Talk about your turnarounds. Laker management goes on a season-long adventure that blows up in its face. Then, as if to prove it missed the point of the whole debacle, it’s getting set to turn over the wreckage to a young guy who may or may not have the makings of a great coach in him. Then, when you least expect it, rational thought reappears as if someone put smelling salts under Jerry Buss’ nose.

Oh yeah, Phil Jackson! Just because the newspapers want him, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s dopey, does it? Didn’t he win a bunch of championships somewhere?

Let’s try it!

And that was how fast the Lakers went back to acting like the Lakers.

Hiring a high-profile, high-priced coach with no Laker ties and a habit of speaking his mind, who had teed them off more than once (here’s how I’d handle Dennis Rodman, here’s how I’d handle Shaquille O’Neal, etc.), isn’t exactly the Laker Way, but times change and they finally acknowledged it.

Until last season, their way worked fine. For two decades, Buss and Jerry West made intelligent decisions and paid the going rate, no matter how absurd. They built a franchise that players everywhere yearned to work for, that appreciated wildly (Buss paid $16 million for the team; based on next season’s projected revenues, it may be worth more than $500 million), that won five titles in the ‘80s and was rebuilt into an elite team by the mid-’90s, or so everyone thought.

Not that there weren’t other misadventures, such as when Buss tried to finesse West back onto the sideline in 1981 by naming him “co-coach,” and West lateraled the job to the other “co-coach,” Pat Riley, in full view of everyone at a news conference.

Riley, who’d be glad to admit he was clueless at that tender point in his career, took over and, six months later, they won a title.

Then Riley grew up on the job and they won three more in the next six seasons. That was how it used to go in those golden (and purple) days.

Of course, Riley had the game’s most devastating option, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and a coach on the floor, Magic Johnson. This season the Lakers tried the same trick with Kurt Rambis but he had one intermittently available forward, another who needed 15 shots or else and two young stars who had issues.

By season’s end, O’Neal had issues with Rambis too. To Rambis’ credit, he tried to stop coddling the stars. He wanted O’Neal playing better defense and when opponents fouled the big 50% free-throw shooter in crunch time, Rambis took the ball out of his hands. A few times, he took O’Neal off the court.

O’Neal’s endorsement was one reason Rambis got the job in the first place, but O’Neal’s deal is simple. He’s wildly impatient to win a title and get everyone off his back. Anyone who can help him is great. Anyone who doesn’t becomes the enemy.

You didn’t notice the Lakers winning any titles this season, did you? Guess where that left O’Neal and Rambis.

Of course, it’s now being suggested that O’Neal got Rambis fired, but insiders say that wasn’t how it worked.

“Jerry [West] didn’t care,” says a source close to negotiations. “Jerry wanted a strong coach so he wouldn’t have to deal with problems on the roster.

“But in the end, this was Jerry Buss deciding he was willing to pay the money.”

Buss had always treated his stars lavishly and everyone else thriftily. However, he has recently been dragged into the present, kicking, screaming and writing big checks.

West now makes $3.5 million a year. Jackson would get $6 million. Buss may have learned how precious leadership is the hard way, having tried going with a rookie coach and without heeding West’s warnings.

Young players are younger now, forces unto themselves, surrounded by entourages that are veritable bureaucracies. Your coach still has to get on top of them if you’re to have a team, as opposed to a band of squabbling children, which is what the Lakers have been for years.

This was the week the Lakers pulled their heads out of the ‘80s, and just in time, while there was a little time, and an intact franchise, left in the ‘90s.

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Of course, it’s only the Eastern Conference, but when did the NBA ever have a Cinderella story to compare to the New York Knicks?

As the eighth-seeded team, they slay No. 1 Miami and their old coach, Riley, on a last-second-bounce- off-front-rim-and-backboard shot by Allan Houston. They overwhelm the Atlanta Hawks, then lose Patrick Ewing while splitting the first two games in Indianapolis, pull themselves back together and beat the Pacers in Game 3 on a last-second four-point play by Larry Johnson. Johnson, who has been passing up interview sessions, won’t come to the interview room and takes 40 minutes to get dressed after this one, meaning the local papers have no quotes from him. The NBA fines him $10,000.

Meanwhile, Madison Square Garden President Dave Checketts is still trying to recruit Jackson, and every time the Knicks falter, Checketts’ guys in the media start firing on Jeff Van Gundy.

The Pacers win Game 4 in New York to make it 2-2, heading back to Indianapolis and it looks like the fun is over. The New York Daily News’ Mike Lupica writes Van Gundy “was nuts” for starting Latrell Sprewell, adding:

“Van Gundy’s team didn’t show up to play the biggest game of the season. If he gets all this credit when things are going good, he has to take at least some of the blame for that.”

That nutty Van Gundy runs the same lineup out in Game 5. Sprewell scores 29 as they re-shock the Pacers’ world.

The press corps is in a tizzy. The New York Post’s Pete Vecsey, who is thought to be close to fallen general manager Ernie Grunfeld, writes that the New York Times’ Mike Wise, who ripped Grunfeld, is a “creep.”

Johnson goes down early in Game 6, but the Knicks win as Houston outscores one-time Manhattan Strangler Reggie Miller, 32-8. For the series, Marcus Camby, who doesn’t even start, outscores Indiana’s No. 1 option, Rik Smits, 86-75, outrebounds him, 62-20, and blocks 18 shots to Smits’ six.

Not that this is a surprise, but before the series even the Knicks were wondering what use the willowy Camby would be against the big Pacers.

Said assistant coach Don Chaney: “I don’t know how helpful Marcus will be in this series because I don’t know if he can bang with those guys.”

Who knows what the coaching situation is now? Jackson is headed to the Lakers. By making the finals, Van Gundy triggers a bonus clause, giving him another season on his contract at $3.5 million--assuming he wants it.

Things don’t look so good between Van Gundy and Checketts. At one of the New York games, Van Gundy is chatting with movie director/archfan Penny Marshall when Checketts walks by and pats him on the shoulder.

Van Gundy doesn’t even acknowledge Checketts.

So what if the San Antonio Spurs take the Knicks apart in the finals? So what if four Western teams would have been favored over them, before Johnson got hurt? One more key loss--which should be coming any day the way the Knicks are going--and they might be on even terms with the Clippers.

Here’s to you, tough cookies. You were something.

FACES AND FIGURES

This just in from the Chicago pre-draft camp: Duke freshman Corey Maggette worked out for 13 teams in an ill-conceived drill that didn’t show off his marvelous athleticism but proved he was a fair shooter, at best. “It was one of those things where everybody turned to each other and asked, ‘What am I doing here?’ ” one of the general managers said. . . . Maggette, still expected to be a top 10 pick, will work out for individual teams (like the Clippers this week) and may still crash the top five. . . . Forget last week’s note about the Charlotte Hornets preparing their fans for skipping over Elton Brand at No. 3. I was trying to read between the lines of someone’s newspaper story. Actually, the Hornets may take Brand if he turns out to be 6 feet 8, as he was listed at Duke, rather than 6-6, which the pros suspect is closer to the truth. . . . Charlotte officials aren’t so dumb, after all. They’d like to dump Derrick Coleman, and they aren’t optimistic about keeping Anthony Mason happy either. Said one about Mason: “He gets mad at air.” . . . Oops: Miami of Ohio’s Wally Szczerbiak, listed at 6-8 but recently measured at 6-6 1/2, says Brand, a teammate on last summer’s Goodwill Games team, “is about my size.” . . . The Clippers, who pick fourth, recently worked out Duke’s Trajan Langdon, hoping he could last until their No. 31 pick, but gave up on that one when they saw him knock down 22 of 25 three-pointers.

Even before the Lakers started closing in on Jackson, O’Neal, who can opt out, was striking a more conciliatory tone. “I really don’t like starting over,” he said recently in Orlando, where he has been hanging out since the season ended. “I really don’t like starting over, so I’m not thinking about it. We’ll see. We just have to grow together. If we can get some more time together, we’ll be OK.” . . . Reality check: Penny Hardaway, who would have made $8.7 million in Orlando next season, opted out of his contract, apparently under the delusion someone else will pay him that much. Look for him to return hat in hand to the Magic, either to request a sign-and-trade or to play for Orlando--at a marked pay cut. . . . Oops: Miami’s Tim (Bug) Hardaway, on getting a ladybug tattoo: “I don’t advise anyone to do it. First of all, it hurts. Second of all, 10 years from now, I’ll probably look down and ask myself, ‘Why do I have this on my leg?’ ”