A BRIEF INTERIM MISSION

So the next thing Kurt Rambis knows, he’s out, Phil Jackson is in, the team takes off, Rick Carlisle and Byron Scott have nudged him aside as this year’s model, and he is just sort of there, part of the success, but not really. The ultimate Laker insider--player, broadcaster, assistant coach and head coach, adored by fans, respected and appreciated by management--on the outside.

It all happened so fast. He went from interim head coach last season to some custom-made title in this one, advisor to the president. His biggest contribution, scouting playoff opponents, required being away from the team. And if that doesn’t say it all . . .

The disappointment doesn’t hide well. The decision to hire Jackson, he says, yes, that was understandable. A move that made total sense. No argument there. But that only means he can appreciate the call, not swallow it in one gulp.

Forty-six games. That was his chance. In a season that recklessly swerved all over the road--the lockout that created a shortened schedule and far fewer practices, the trade that sent Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell and delivered Glen Rice, the sideshow of that guy with the hair and tattoos. Without the hammer of a contract that went beyond the end of the playoffs. With a sometime starter at point guard (Derek Harper) who would retire that summer and a starter at power forward (J.R. Reid) who would be left off the Milwaukee Bucks’ playoff roster a year later.

Not only that, it was The Chance. The Lakers were a championship contender, not some playoff hopeful looking for new blood to push it forward. They had an established roster with an established front office. In the town he loves as much as it loves him.

He moved up from assistant coach after Del Harris was fired in February. Won his first nine games, tying the record Buddy Jeannette of the Baltimore Bullets set in 1947 for best start by a rookie coach. Inherited a team that was 6-6, then went 25-13 the rest of the regular season. Beat Houston in the first round of the playoffs, three games to one. Still heard the Lakers were keeping their options open for 1999-2000, instead of removing the interim tag. Knew that was code for “Let’s see what it would take to get Phil here.”

Then against the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semifinals, the Lakers came late on the double team to Tim Duncan on the low post, and didn’t foul him even with one to give, with a one-point lead in the closing seconds of Game 2. Duncan made the shot, the Lakers got swept, and it was over. The season and the chance.

“I don’t think anybody can look back at that season and say, ‘We saw everything that Kurt Rambis could possibly bring to a team in terms of being a head coach’ and make their decision from that,” he said nearly a year later.

“I’ve had several people--general managers, coaches, players--come up to me and just say, ‘The Lakers put you in an absolutely horrible position last year.’ It wasn’t a good season [because of the lockout] for an interim coach. It just wasn’t a conducive environment to be put into that type of situation.”

Of course he still thinks about it.

“Every day,” Rambis said.

A laugh escapes.

“Only every day.”

1998-99

The chain of events were set in motion before the season, or what passed for a season. Rambis talked to the Sacramento Kings, for the job that eventually went to Rick Adelman, and to the Clippers, before Chris Ford was hired. These conversations would have special importance almost two years later, when he couldn’t help but wonder what might have been elsewhere.

He was on the list as one of the bright, young, rising coaching prospects, part of the next wave along with the likes of Doc Rivers and Scott Skiles. He came back to the Lakers as one of Harris’ assistants, along with Larry Drew and Bill Bertka, all the while impressing management with his gains on the bench. Just like the playing days, he was smart, hard-working and, it seemed, destined for a great run.

Harris’ was just ending: He was fired 12 games into his fifth season. Rambis got the promotion. Got the dream job.

He also got the pressure and the expectations, without any promises beyond the interim status. Dennis Rodman had just arrived. The Rice-Jones trade would go down about two weeks later. As the league tried to jam the round schedule into the square calendar, playing catch-up for all the time missed, practices were rare. His great relationship with the media, a constant since his playing days, disintegrated as he bristled at questions. Life as a temp under scrutiny.

“I could have been more open and honest,” he said. “My internal beliefs were telling me, ‘Say these things.’ But the things I wanted to say and be honest with the media about, just to give them a better understand of how I feel about things, are where a coach who’s very secure in his situation would come from.

“I can’t criticize the trade. I can’t criticize Dennis Rodman. All of that stuff was out of my control. That was stuff that happened to me. So am I in a position in a 50-game season with two months on my [contract] to say something bad? No, I’m not. Not that the trade for Glen Rice wasn’t the right thing. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m just saying that I am in no position whatsoever to be honest, to be critical of a situation.

“Someone asked me about Shaq’s free-throw shooting. ‘How big of a detriment?’ or something like that. And it’s like I glossed over that, just saying, ‘He’s a great ballplayer, he helps us in so many other fields and it’s just something that we’re going to have to deal with.’ I answered it honestly in that respect. That there are a lot of players that have a lot of weaknesses and that one just happens to be a glaring one.

“But no coach can look at that situation and say that that’s not a very good situation, to either be coaching that guy or as the coach on the opposing team that you wouldn’t take that and use that to your advantage, to put him on the line in late-game situations. He’s doing a phenomenal job with it this year. But that’s a question that I couldn’t answer completely honestly, because I’d get up from that interview and there he is, sitting there. I’m ripping him, basically, saying he can’t shoot free throws.

“In the capsule that I was in, there’s probably very little that I would change. When you take me out of that capsule--’Now looking back, Kurt, what would you have done?’--I probably would have done a lot of things differently knowing that I wasn’t going to get the job back. I would have been much more secure in my situation then. I would have been significantly more honest with the press in terms of how I felt about things. ‘This is my cursory I’m-management-working-for-the-Lakers answer, but if I ain’t getting this job back, here’s what I really think’ kind of thing.”

Said his wife, Linda: “Look at the difference between how Jim Todd [the interim coach with the Clippers this season] handles answering questions about his players and how Phil Jackson does,” she said. “You’ve got one guy who’s hanging out there on the limb all by himself and one guy who from the top down is supported. It’s simple. You’ve got to suck it up a little more when you’re not the guy.”

So he is given the chance now. What would he like to say that he didn’t before in the name of political correctness?

Silence for two seconds.

A deep breath.

“Welp,” he said.

Exhale.

“You remember I still work for the Lakers.”

1999-2000

“It’s been tough,” Rambis said. “I was working my way up the coaching system, being an assistant coach, and thought I was going to be given an opportunity to prolong my head-coaching career and all of the sudden to come back down to do what I’m doing was very difficult. But it also gave me an opportunity to learn a lot about front-office jobs, information, how this whole Laker organization works. I learned an awful lot about the salary cap and issues that the teams and the owners have to deal with, so it’s been educational along those lines.

“I miss being with the team, I miss dealing with day-to-day activities with a team, because that’s what I was doing as a player and then when I jumped right into being a player-assistant coach, then an assistant coach, then head coach. It was a long time of me being involved all the time, and then to just have it cut completely off was frustrating.”

He could still be coach, more a case of being beaten out by Jackson than thrown out. If the heavyweight wasn’t available, everything could be so much different. Instead, the advisor to the president was asked by owner Jerry Buss earlier in the season to look into trade possibilities, even though that is a major responsibility for Executive Vice President Jerry West and General Manager Mitch Kupchak. That was the biggest project. The advisor to the president who would have loved to at least parachuted into being one of Jackson’s assistant coaches.

“Absolutely, I wish I could be more in it,” Rambis said. “In terms of thinking, have I had what I would consider valuable input? No, I wouldn’t say that.”

He is asked if Buss basically created something for him to do. Busy work and a title out of deference to a loyal Laker.

“I think he respects my opinion, just being around basketball for such a long time,” Rambis said. “But in some respects, that’s what it’s been. They were interesting, they involved a lot of my time. But it was just for a short period of time.”

He had enough left over that he did some TV work on USC basketball games and some for Laker pregame shows. No, it has definitely not been an easy year. At least he has had an important role in the playoffs, serving as the advance scout for each future opponent.

“Disappointment, for sure,” said Kupchak, a former teammate. “Absolutely. And understandably so. But we were all disappointed last year, some of us more than others. Kurt? Yes.”

Said Rambis: “Disappointed more than angry. I said this earlier, athletes are used to having setbacks. And setbacks just motivate me to prove myself even more to go out there and show I am very capable of doing the job.

“What did I coach for, two months? Two months and basically zero practice time. It was just a very diLOS ANGfficult time and situation to evaluate me as a coach, in terms of what I feel like I can do over the long haul.”

“I think about it a lot. I was in an excellent position as an up-and- coming, highly sought-after assistant coach trying to make the right decision to get that first coaching opportunity, make sure it was the right coaching opportunity.”

It has been a season of realizations. The success of the team has convinced him that he was on target with many of his ideas for on-court strategy, needing only the training camp that never came for implementation. The success of the team without him has convinced him that maybe he would have been better off going harder for one of the jobs that would have provided a patient atmosphere and the chance to grow into the role.

“Looking back on it,” he said, “I made the wrong decision. At that time, it was the right decision. But you can’t look back on your life like that. That’s just ridiculous to do. At that time, I did make the right decision.”

They don’t make dream jobs like they used to.

2000-01?

Those 46 games won’t be his only chance as a head coach. Impossible.

Isn’t it?

“God forbid, I hope that that’s not my opportunity or my last opportunity,” Rambis said. “I think that there are enough educated basketball minds out there that they would not say, ‘He failed. He can’t do.’ I think that’s the farthest thing from people who truly understand the game.”

So among all those general managers around the league who told him he was put in an absolutely horrible position before, how many have said, “Let’s talk”?

“None,” Rambis said.

Maybe they will in this summer of vacancies around the league. He thinks that will bring opportunity, even while aware of the perception he is not the hot ticket of two years ago. Scott, his former Laker teammate, and Carlisle are riding the streaking comets now. At least he is in line at a time when the trend has gone back to young ex-players, even with little experience on the sidelines. Rivers and Skiles made it better for him.

So he waits. For another chance and for redemption, both of which will have to come elsewhere. For the chance to be a head coach on a team whose pressures are not so great as needing to win the championship yesterday, where he can grow into a the role without the scorching spotlight. You know. The dream job.