Jackson Not Game for Honor

Phil Jackson, who coached the Eastern Conference team twice when he was with the Chicago Bulls, said he is not looking forward to the possibility of coaching the Western Conference team in the Feb. 13 All-Star game in Oakland.

“I dislike the whole venture; I dislike the concept,” the Laker coach said after Saturday’s late-afternoon workout at Los Angeles Southwest College.

“I like the baseball All-Star game. That’s an individual sport, where you can go out there, guy hits against the pitcher. I mean, so what, big deal.

“But in basketball, I don’t like it at all.”

If the Lakers, who have the best record in the league at 25-5, have the best record in the conference Jan. 30, Jackson will be the West coach, probably with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant as two of his players.

Jackson said there’s obviously no way to run the triangle offense in the one-on-one showcase of an all-star game, and teamwork is not a high priority.

“My coaches have always said I’ve lost games right at the end before the All-Star game so that Pat Riley would have to go and coach the All-Star game,” Jackson said with a smile. “I hate them. I absolutely abhor them.

“[The game encourages] all the wrong things, and I don’t need that kind of a weekend, when you can take a break and get away from the game, to have to go and participate in that.”

O’Neal said he understood Jackson’s feelings: “Ditto: I like the game, but I’d rather go there and just play rather than do all that other [stuff].”

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After giving the players two days off, and with the next game not until Tuesday, Jackson mostly used Saturday’s workout for conditioning.

Were the players surprised to be practicing, and running, on New Year’s Day, which none of them could remember the Lakers doing in recent seasons?

“I think it was a smart move, for those guys who partied last night, got it out of them,” O’Neal said.

Said Bryant: “Felt good to come in with the guys and get a little sweat going. . . . We were having a good time . . . just fun being around one another, a little camaraderie.”