Lakers Put Off Talks on Jackson’s Contract

The Lakers have suspended their negotiations to extend Coach Phil Jackson’s contract until after the season, a decision they said would allow them to eliminate one of many potential distractions over the next several months.

It probably will make Jackson an attractive summer commodity in a league that recently has seen unprecedented turnover among its head coaches. If Jackson becomes what amounts to a free agent, it will be as the coach of at least nine NBA champions, and with the highest regular-season winning percentage in league history.

And, it comes at a time when the Laker roster faces substantial changes. Of the Lakers’ 15 players, nine can leave after the season, including Kobe Bryant, Gary Payton and Karl Malone, and so the prospect of Jackson leaving appears to add to the tumult.

Bryant, 25 and facing a criminal trial on charges of felony sexual assault, carries the greatest impact potential, having become a first-team All-NBA player and three-time champion before his 25th birthday.

Several players privately expressed concern that Laker management would allow a scenario in which Jackson would finish his contract and leave.

Bryant has said he would opt out of his contract at the end of the season, and on Wednesday said the result of Jackson’s negotiations with the team would not alter his decision to stay or go.

“I don’t care,” he said.

Negotiations on a two-year extension for Shaquille O’Neal, held concurrently with Jackson’s, are ongoing, though the sides remain several million dollars apart.

While the organization presented the choice to suspend talks as mutually held, Jackson’s agent, Todd Musburger, said, “I don’t want to say it was my judgment. My preference would be to continue talks. But, I do acknowledge the club is having a most unusual year. Based on that, I understand why they would say they have to concentrate on that.”

Jackson’s five-year, $30-million contract expires at the conclusion of the season. Negotiations to extend it by another two or three years began in earnest late last summer, after Jackson determined he was well enough, at 58, to continue.

The talks ended last weekend, however, apparently after an original offer from the Lakers of about $6 million annually -- Jackson’s current salary -- had not substantially improved over several months. Rather than have word of the stall leak and create what he believed would be a larger story, Laker General Manager Mitch Kupchak chose to announce the news.

Jackson was measured in his comments Wednesday, before the Lakers played the last game of their seven-game trip.

“I have no hard feelings at all,” he said. “I actually think it’s the right move for them to make with all the free agents they have this summer.”

Still, he said he was surprised at the announcement and that he would talk to Kupchak over the weekend.

A year ago, Jackson was contemplating retirement, thoughts based on a gradual loss of energy. He subsequently was found to have a blocked artery in his heart.

On May 10, between Games 3 and 4 of the Western Conference semifinals against the San Antonio Spurs, Jackson underwent an angioplasty procedure, coached Game 5 in San Antonio, and a month later declared himself healthy and ready to talk contract extension.

Early in the season, Jackson, who is in a relationship with Jeanie Buss, the owner’s daughter and a team vice president, declared that he would coach only the Lakers. Shortly thereafter, team owner Jerry Buss predicted an extension agreement would be reached, though he expressed dismay that the negotiations were not face to face.

Having Jackson continue as the Laker coach -- he won titles in his first three seasons in Los Angeles -- remains the objective, Kupchak said.

“It hasn’t changed,” he said. “We’re putting this off to the summer.”

Kupchak and Musburger said the negotiating table was left without rancor, but with a realization that progress was not forthcoming.

“All I know,” said one club employee, “is there’s some hesitation on somebody’s part.”

Musburger said he would remain optimistic, and re-enter negotiations in June or July with the same enthusiasm to re-sign with the Lakers.

“I think that a new contract, an extension, is somewhere between possibility and probability,” Musburger said.

And, yet, the season continues, and the speculation that Jackson will leave for another organization might only increase. On Wednesday night, he grinned.

“I love to do that,” he said thinly. “That’s one of my favorite things. That’s reality. I’ve done it two or three times in my career. It’s OK. It’s what the game’s about.”