Verdict Comes With Reasonable Doubt

Who knew?

I’d like to explain why Phil Jackson came back to the Lakers, but readers might remember I was the one who said it could never, ever happen.

Now that he’s back, I still can’t tell you why.

It can’t be to break his tie with Red Auerbach at nine titles apiece.

It can’t be for Jeanie Buss. She keeps saying she’ll take him for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both may live. Assuming she didn’t ask for an exemption for Cleveland, Jackson had complete freedom of choice where Jeanie was concerned.

Win, lose, draw or off-season, nobody does soap opera like the Lakers. It’s too bad there are no league conspiracies or they’d definitely be back in the Finals next season.

As it is, they might be gone but their spirit remains. Jackson’s interview on ABC is thought to have boosted Game 1 ratings and his “hiring” -- actually, his announcement he was coming back -- turned Game 3 into a footnote.

Why Jackson returned is his business. What it means for the Lakers, the lucky beneficiaries of his quirky decision, is the difference between darkness and light.

Not that the good old days are back. Jackson isn’t even assured of making the playoffs in the next three seasons. This is a tough conference and as he said recently, the Lakers are “hamstrung” as far as making changes.

Nevertheless, it will be the difference between planning, as opposed to dreaming and calling it management, which is what the Lakers did for the one year minus five days he was gone.

Until Tuesday, they were headed over the waterfall, looking at another season like last one. Everyone would have turned on Kobe Bryant -- again -- and he wouldn’t have been any happier with them. If someone like Andrew Bogut is piling on him now, you can imagine what Kobe’s image would have been by then.

It would have been hard to find a free agent who wanted to play with him. More likely, in a year or two he would have wanted out, they would have wanted him out and he would have been traded -- probably for nothing. By then things might have been so bleak, Jerry Buss might even have stopped raising ticket prices annually.

Buss was a model owner when he had Jerry West. When West left in 2000 and Jackson was shown the door last spring, Buss was out of his element.

Laker officials still insist Buss knew exactly what he was getting into when he traded Shaquille O’Neal. If that’s true, it was just a public relations disaster, as opposed to a basketball disaster.

If they knew they were headed for hard times, it would have been a really good idea for someone -- Buss, General Manager Mitch Kupchak, Coach Rudy Tomjanovich -- to say it.

Instead, Tomjanovich banned the “R word” (rebuilding). When Kupchak was asked about it, he said they weren’t really rebuilding if that meant starting over.

Nobody ever said, “We might be bad, but it’s something we have to go through.”

Actually, Bryant said it last summer. However, by the fall, everybody was bashing him and he became hell-bent on proving this team wasn’t that bad.

Their No. 11 finish was greeted by dismay, internally as well as externally. Kupchak was sent off to reassure season-ticket holders in a town hall meeting (no press allowed), at which one fan called for his resignation and another said Bryant should be traded, although both were hooted down.

This, of course, was an unusual, not to mention belated, way of communicating with the public, seeing as how the local newspapers, TV and radio stations reserve great chunks of free space and time every day for the Lakers to say whatever they want.

Then came a rare media availability with Buss, which proved he didn’t know what he was doing, declaring cavalierly they could be back in the West finals in a year or two.

Whether that was naivete or salesmanship run amok, it wasn’t good, as far as the Lakers were concerned.

Buss also broke the thrilling news that his son, Jim, was now in the loop at the highest level. This wasn’t a surprise within the organization, but a dismaying fact of life. Jim was reportedly down on Kupchak.

All that just ended. Jackson just took over the organization, by dint of being Phil Jackson. Kupchak never had West’s cachet with the owner, but Jackson will.

Jackson knows what he wants and what’s realistic. Best of all, he says it, letting the fans in on the bad news before the sky falls, as he did Tuesday.

“It’s all about taking the first step,” Jackson said. “ ... It’s not about a 10th championship. It’s just about coming back here and reestablishing a team that is competitive, that fans here can be proud to watch.”

Welcome back to real life, Lakerdom.

Here’s how hamstrung they are. Their ace in the hole, keeping cap room for the summer of 2007 and 2008, depends on adding no money to what is already committed. So anything Jackson wants to do has to be weighed against what they might want to do in the last year of his contract or after he’s gone.

In other words, if they want to use their veteran’s exception to offer, say, Earl Watson a four-year, $20-million deal, they might not have enough cap room in 2007 and 2008.

Whatever happens, Jackson will act as if he has it covered. It won’t be like before with Shaq and Kobe when he did have it covered, but it will still be reassuring.

As for Jackson and Bryant, my bet is it’ll work better than people think -- and better than Kobe thinks.

Before, Jackson always had to keep Bryant in line behind O’Neal. Now Jackson will defer to Kobe, and take some of the heat off him in his role as spokesman. Jackson will help them win more than 34 games, all of which will come as a pleasant surprise to Kobe.

Not that the Lakers did one thing to deserve this. Jackson wanted to sit down with the owner and with Bryant, but neither could squeeze him in between vacations.

Buss didn’t want to pay Jackson’s kind of dollars if there was no chance of winning a title. After giving Tomjanovich Jackson money and seeing him give it back and flee, Buss had figured out they were out of the title chase for the moment.

On the other hand, Buss didn’t know what else to do and my bet is season-ticket renewals were trickling in at an alarmingly slow pace.

Despite being underwhelmed and against most of the principles he had lived by in his professional career, Jackson came back. The Lakers can definitely use someone that confident.

Of course, there’s the question of how well this will work for him. Laker fans had better hope he doesn’t do a Rudy.