The Piece Maker

The pool was to Phil Jackson’s left, the ocean straight ahead and the pink blended drink on the table in front of him.

“This is paradise,” Jackson said.

But what good is it to be in paradise if you can’t walk on the sand?

Jackson’s week in Hawaii was filled with practices, meetings, a speaking engagement and, um, interviews like this one. Total beach time in the first six days: about 30 minutes under an umbrella.

You wonder whether this training camp really is a preparation for the season, whether this whole year could be a tease filled with constant reminders of how much better life could be.

Kobe Bryant’s weakened condition has kept him from joining Shaquille O’Neal, Gary Payton and Karl Malone in full-speed drills, or in Tuesday night’s exhibition game against the Golden State Warriors. And his battle against a charge of felony sexual assault he says he did not commit could keep him off the court in the future.

Any sports prognostication relies on the presumption that the players will remain injury free, but this is the first one counting on the legal system’s presumption of innocence.

“It has the potential to be a very difficult situation,” Jackson said. “If the Kobe Bryant thing clears up, if the trial is put off until the [end] of June or whatever, it gives Kobe a whole season to just go out and play, and it gives him relief. If the trial is in the middle of the season and he’s going to have to prep for that, it takes a lot of work to go through the trial, that could be a distraction.”

And that doesn’t even get to the basketball issues. From a team sense, Jackson said the quandary of keeping all of these A-list players satisfied was just as large.

“Both Gary and Karl are extremely compliant, very much a part of what we’re doing. Although Shaq is not always real compliant as a player, he’s kind of grudgingly come along under difficult circumstances -- he’s been injured a little bit, there’s some disappointing news for him a little bit” regarding a contract extension.

O’Neal’s face barely changes expression when Jackson’s name is mentioned. He constantly reiterates that he doesn’t want to be a minimal part of the triangle offense, as Bill Cartwright and Luc Longley were in Chicago.

“My father told me a long time ago, ‘You ain’t gotta like me, but you gotta respect me,’ ” O’Neal said. “That’s the same for [him and Jackson]. I ain’t gotta like him, but I’ve gotta respect him. And I do respect him.

“I don’t know how our relationship has grown. But I’m out here to do my job. I’m going to do my job because I’ve been doing it. But let me be me. Let the Diesel be the Diesel. If I’m in the [lane], give me the ball. If I’m open, I want the ball. That’s it. Don’t have me just doing stuff that I’m not used to doing. Bring it to me, I’ll do what I always do.”

In turn, Jackson has one request for O’Neal: Play like the NBA’s most valuable player.

“Tim Duncan’s won the award two years in a row,” Jackson said. “You watch Shaq play against Tim Duncan in the four years since I’ve been with this team, and he’s had the best of him three out of four years. Last year was Tim’s year, and he rightfully deserved it. The year before, I’m not so sure. He was awarded it, but I’m not so sure he deserved it. Shaq’s got to go out and claim it.

“I think we all believe in him. Now he’s got to make that trust that we’ve had in him a reality. This offense is geared to getting the ball in to him. We want him to be as demanding a player as he’s been. We know deep in our heart of hearts that defense and rebounding is going to win. That’s what’s going to win, not Shaquille scoring 50 points or 50 touches whatever a game. It’s going to be rebounding and getting stops.”

He said that he felt comfortable with his relationship with O’Neal, adding, “Whatever goes on, I think we’ve got, ultimately, a lot of respect for each other.”

Now add to the mix Payton, who ran Paul Westphal -- probably the only NBA coach more laid-back than Jackson -- out of Seattle. It took Jackson all of 24 hours to learn “Gary’s got a big mouth,” but it’s only taken a few practices for him to discover Payton also is a quick learner.

“I’m sure Gary’s going to be a volatile player,” Jackson said. “That’s OK. I’m OK with guys that want to speak their piece, as long as they’re speaking from a true space, they’re being honest, it’s not a selfish motive, a self-serving motive. It’s a motive from the heart, of what we’re trying to accomplish as a basketball team. I’m willing to listen and willing to help. I’m prepared for that.”

This combination of strong personalities and dominant egos led many to believe that this would be Jackson’s greatest coaching challenge. What we didn’t realize is that he’d already been through the hard part.

He spent last season feeling sluggish and weak, wondering whether he could make it through another season. That problem was addressed in a May angioplasty to open a heart artery that had been 90% blocked. He also had a kidney stone removed in February.

“I think [last] year was one of the toughest that he’s had in his coaching career that I’ve been associated with him, which has been some time now,” said Tex Winter, Jackson’s assistant for nine years in Chicago and four years in Los Angeles. “His health was really a drag on him for an awful lot of the season.

“But he seemed to really get a new lease on life after that operation. His enthusiasm and his spirits seem to be rekindled. His energy is much better and I think he’s really looking forward to this year, probably more than he has for any year in a long time.”

With Jackson’s health no longer an issue, and as the thought process went away from retiring and toward extending his contract beyond its expiration next year, Jackson turned his attention toward fixing the Lakers.

Jackson and Winter got together in August and watched the tape of the team’s Game 6 elimination loss to the San Antonio Spurs in the second round of the playoffs.

“We looked undisciplined, we didn’t run our offense well,” Jackson said. “Defensively, we need to give second efforts. They got a lot of baskets off second chances. Didn’t stop penetration. All of those things.

“I didn’t think we played with the kind of intensity that I’d like to see us play with as the three-time defending champs. It was disappointing.”

A return to glory is going to take more effort from Jackson as well. He’s healthier, thanks to a modified diet and medication for his heart. He said at the outset of camp that the influx of new players would require more energy from him, and so far he’s been up to the task, shooting free throws to initiate full-court drills and constantly roaming the court to offer instructions.

And he’s thinking outside the clipboard as well. Normally, he waits until the pressure has built to use his stress-relieving unorthodox methods, such as inserting movie clips into video sessions, or the time he took the Bulls for a ride aboard the Staten Island Ferry during the 1994 playoffs.

Only one day into training camp, Jackson took the Lakers to Bellows Air Force Station on the other side of Oahu, where the players met servicemen and women and engaged in a spirited game of paintball.

“I needed a non-basketball situation to see if we could kind of sort out what’s going to be the pecking order of leadership on this team,” he said. “How is the leadership going to be applied?

“So it just gives them a little bit of an opportunity to do some different things outside of a basketball realm to show their leadership skills, if that indeed is part of what they want to do.

“There also are some things about backing each other up; who’s going to stand up and be counted? We had a couple of kids who didn’t even want to leave the barriers. They didn’t want to even risk a paintball splattering on their jersey. So we found out a little bit of something by that activity.”

The exercise was a huge hit with the team.

“By far the best” of Jackson’s moves, Horace Grant said. The 40-year-old Malone looked like a happy kid. O’Neal’s bruised heel magically felt better, and he participated in the paintball game -- and later, practice.

His players are showing initiative, whether it’s impromptu strategy talks on the court or O’Neal’s inviting the new guys’ families to his house for a party. Jackson has had very few critical words to say so far.

“This is about going with the flow,” Jackson said. “This is really about guys that know how to play ball. They’re highly experienced. Teaching them how to play together is a little bit of a chore, but they want to do that. So the spirit is there, the willingness is there.

“Once they get in mind that they’re sharing the ball and they’re sharing the load with each other, they’ll be fine. But it could take awhile. That’s why I’ve been expounding a laissez-faire type of a situation. We’re going to have to go through a struggle period and then break through that so that we know about each other and about how we do under duress.”

For the moment, he didn’t have to worry about the stress. A few minutes of chit-chat at the Hilton Hawaiian Village’s Ocean View Terrace, then up to the room to change into his swimsuit before heading down to the beach to join Jeanie Buss. A little time, at last, to live life in paradise.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.