Bickerstaff Is Jackson’s Latest Sparring Partner

This season Phil Jackson has exchanged insults with Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban and has been referred to as “one of the great complainers of all time” by Miami Heat Coach Pat Riley.

Next up? General Manager-Coach Bernie Bickerstaff of the Charlotte Bobcats.

Bickerstaff took exception to Jackson’s comments regarding the Bobcats’ waiving of Kareem Rush and criticized Jackson’s assertion that the move was “vindictive” because it was done with so few games left in the season.

“Phil has that ability [to judge],” Bickerstaff sarcastically told the Charlotte Observer. “He was in our locker room ... at our games.”

Bickerstaff also mentioned the tell-all book written by Jackson in 2004, in which numerous locker-room conversations were revealed and Kobe Bryant was labeled uncoachable at times.

“He probably forgets he wrote a book for profit,” Bickerstaff said. “So he has a lot of credibility.”

The Bobcats waived Rush on Saturday, with a statement from Bickerstaff saying, “The Bobcats are about two things -- hard work and maximum effort. With that in mind, we think that it is best to go in a different direction with Kareem.”

Jackson questioned the timing of the decision.

“There’s, what, eight games left in the season?” he said Sunday. “You could do that probably April 30, or whenever the season’s over if you put him on the inactive list.”

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The cap-strapped Lakers might have found one of their first off-season targets in Rush, who spent slightly more than two seasons with the team before being traded to Charlotte in December 2004 for two second-round picks.

Jackson is comfortable with Rush, who knows the triangle offense, is a decent defender and, for better or worse, a streak shooter. Rush averaged 10.1 points with the Bobcats this season before falling out of favor.

“Kareem often expressed fondness of being back with the Lakers,” said Rush’s agent, Calvin Andrews. “If Phil’s interested, we’re interested. We’ll take a look at it and see.”

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If the Lakers do make the playoffs -- almost more when than if at this point -- they will be one of the more rested teams in the Western Conference.

Their steady stream of down-the-stretch home games has been well-documented, but they also have pockets of rest, starting with three days between games last week and continuing with another three days between games this week.

They will have played only 11 games over the final 25 days of the regular season, tying Denver for the least strenuous schedule of West teams that would make the playoffs today.

Most other teams had 13 or 14 games over the same stretch.

Given their injuries and their top-heavy travel schedule, the Lakers will take whatever advantage they can get.

“We want to use this week more as a growth week than last week, which was more of a recovery week,” Jackson said. “[We’ll] try and get the players getting ready to think about new things that we’re going to do during the playoffs and the challenges that are ahead of us.”