These Directions Lead Him Into a Brick Wall

It had come to this. I bumped into Hans Tesselaar, a sports copy editor and a real Lakers’ honk, who tells me, “Vic the Brick says ... “

Pull the plug, please, or assign me to cover the Sparks the rest of my life if you ever hear me repeating the gospel according to the Brick, who does an afternoon radio show on 570 with Steve Hartman and Mychal Thompson.

Thompson, who also does the Laker radio broadcasts, already has told his “Loose Cannons” audience that Phil Jackson will be hired to coach the Lakers and the announcement will come by Friday.

Keep in mind Thompson learned everything he knows about journalism from Jack Haley.

Tesselaar, meanwhile, ignored my laughter and repeated what Brick had to say. Strange that he didn’t feel compelled to report what Thompson had to say.

“Vic says Buss is talking to Jackson about giving him an ownership piece in the team,” Tesselaar said, and I got the impression from Tesselaar that he was waiting for me to whip out my notebook and jot down the hot tip.

Then I ran into Gary Friedman. Most of the time the idea is to run from Gary Friedman, one of our talented photographers, but he sort of sneaked up on me and said, “Vic the Brick says Jackson will get a piece of the team, but only if he agrees to marry Jeanie.”

I know the four other people in L.A. who listen to that radio show, so I made a vow to avoid them while speeding off to the Lakers’ practice facility to get the straight scoop from Jerry Buss.

*

WHEN I heard Buss would be meeting with selected media I took for granted it’d be only with the young babes willing to show him their journalism degrees. But I found myself sitting next to Long Beach’s Doug Krikorian, so looks and youth were certainly not a prerequisite for attending.

Buss took a seat behind a desk facing 20 reporters. “Looks like the Lakers are still newsworthy,” he said, and disasters do have a way of drawing attention.

He requested questions, so I asked who was going to coach the Lakers, he said he didn’t know, and I wondered why everyone was there.

He said he had not offered the job to Jackson, had not started negotiations for the job with Jackson, and said, “I haven’t said I do want him back.” He said he thinks Jackson wants to coach again, but he’s not sure whether Jackson wants to coach next season.

He said he’ll soon interview three coaches. He said Jackson’s name is on his list, but not necessarily at the top. I wanted to hear what he thought of Thompson’s declaration that Jackson will be hired as the Lakers’ coach by Friday, but I didn’t want him to know that I actually listen to that show (or appear on it).

Larry Burnett, who does the Lakers’ postgame radio shows, wanted to know whether Buss would entertain the idea of giving a piece of the team to someone being hired to coach the Lakers. (I guess we know someone else who gets all their information from the Brick.)

“No,” Buss said, and it was an emphatic “no.”

I wanted to know about the courtship of Phil & Jeanie, and Jeanie’s frustration with Phil, as she has expressed it publicly -- not getting a ring from the big lug.

As a father, I asked Buss, what do you have to say about this? Buss said, “Jeanie is not 18. She can say whatever she wants to,” but if he had the chance to say something to Phil, he said, it’d be, “Dammit, Phil, give her the ring.”

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THE TIMES had five reporters at the Buss confab, the newspaper making sure that if four of them ran out of ink, it’d still have it covered.

A number of reporters seemed thrilled rehashing the Shaquille O’Neal trade, but I thought the most important things Buss had to say beyond the fact that Thompson and the Brick have no idea what they’re talking about were: 1) his willingness to say the Lakers are years away from winning another title; 2) his admiration for the work Mitch Kupchak has done and saying it with a straight face; 3) his son, Jim, is now his key advisor and being groomed to “supplant him”; 4) he was counting on Brian Grant, Vlade Divac, Karl Malone and Devean George to get the Lakers into the playoffs this past season, which should tell you he not only admires Kupchak but listens to him; and 5) Phil & Kobe can “definitely” work together.

“I thought he was tougher on me” than Bryant in the book, Buss said, “asking why I was out at the discos dancing until 2 in the morning.”

I just figured somebody had to keep an eye on the players, but whatever the reason, Buss said the Jackson book shouldn’t be a problem.

If Kobe thinks he can win with Phil as coach, Buss said, “he’ll hug him, kiss him and send him a birthday present.” And if Phil thinks he can win with Kobe, Buss added, he’ll have lunch every day with Kobe.

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IT’S HARD not to like Buss because he has all those trophies sitting along one wall, and when you ask him a question, it seems as if he’s trying to answer it honestly. He’s nothing like the Boston Parking Lot Attendant.

We disagreed, though, on one fundamental point.

I suggested fans were down on the Lakers after this past season and if Buss failed to hire Jackson it’d only increase their disenchantment.

He said “true Laker fans” understood this was just something an organization has to go through and they were nowhere near as upset as I suggested.

Then he said an ESPN poll, presumably asking who should coach the Lakers next, showed a number of other coaches besides Jackson receiving votes -- suggesting there are other big-name candidates out there.

I didn’t tell him that you can’t rely on ESPN these days, but I did ask for the big names of the other coaches in the ESPN poll.

But Buss said, “I’ve forgotten” who they were.

T.J. Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.