There’s No Question About Jackson Now

It was time for the pregame audience with Phil Jackson stepping behind a lectern and taking on the air of a president, while I took my customary role as Helen Thomas and asked the first question.

“Are you making a late-season run for coach of the year.... “ I began, being nice as I always am, but the president cut me off.

“Why are you always asking the first question?” he said, turning away, pointing to another reporter and telling the “rookie reporter,” as he labeled him, to ask a question.

I don’t know what Helen Thomas would’ve done, but I asked Jackson if there was some kind of chart on the wall with gold stars indicating who has and has not asked a question while Jackson remained mum, waiting for the rookie reporter to think of something to ask.

Now normally I’m used to coaches doing what they can to avoid tough questions, but begging other reporters to ask questions while obviously sending the message -- if it’s a tough one -- you might get the cold shoulder too, was something new.

Jackson answered an easy question, and then another, and another -- a second from the same reporter and I held up two fingers to indicate it was 2-0 in favor of the rookie.

About this time the reporter for The Times, who covers the Lakers as a daily beat, began to ask Jackson a question, stopped, turned to me and asked if I wanted him to ask Jackson a question for me.

It was a risky maneuver on his part, the president looking at him like it will be a long time before I call on you again, and so I waved him to continue on his own.

Then someone wanted to know if Jackson thought the Lakers could catch Memphis in the standings, and Jackson said he hadn’t looked at the standings, and I just kind of lost it.

“You make your living coach basketball, and you don’t keep an eye on the standings?” I said in disbelief.

“I don’t read the papers,” he said, and he likes to throw that in -- his way of reminding the media how inconsequential he considers their work.

I was still flabbergasted, and for the record, with some of the dumb things said by our local coaches and athletes, I get flabbergasted a lot.

“Basketball is your life,” I said, and he cut me off.

“Basketball has never been my life,” he said, and obviously sometimes it shows, which has to make the guy paying him $10 million a year wonder just what it would take to make basketball his life six or seven months of the year.

At the same time I took the opening to ask a question, reminding him that I had suggested weeks ago we might learn what kind of coaching job Jackson is doing based on whether he could get more out of Lamar Odom and Kwame Brown, and was he surprised by their emergence?

“No, I’m not surprised,” Jackson said. “We want our players to peak at this time of the year and hopefully they have. Hopefully they still continue to play better as they go through the season.”

“You see,” I said, “that wasn’t so tough.”

A few minutes later, I tried again, noting the improvement in Brown, and asking Jackson if that was one of the great coaching accomplishments in his career.

“Yeah,” he said, while standing up to end the news conference. “I got Chris Mihm hurt and built up his minutes.”

You see what happens when I try to compliment one of the local guys.

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JACKSON WALKED down the hall to sit for a TNT interview, and on his way back to the locker room, I asked him, “Are you afraid of the daughter, and that’s why you won’t do” the father/daughter gabfest Sunday morning on 570, which also happens to be the Lakers’ flagship station?

I know he gets up early to chant, so that can’t be the reason for not doing the show, and I suppose we could have him do that, which wouldn’t be much worse than some of our interviews.

Jackson said, “No,” he’s not afraid of Miss Radio Personality, which tells you what he knows about the kid, and in fact, he said he has never heard the show, which tells me he doesn’t spend Sunday mornings with Jeanie, because she’s not only listened to the show but has been a guest twice.

He said Jeanie has mentioned the show, but he wanted to listen to get a feel of it, and I assured him, “I think you could handle it,” although I know the daughter’s first question -- “Just what does Jeanie see in you?” -- could result in nothing but a dial tone once he comes on.

Jackson agreed with me. “I think I could handle it too,” he said, so I asked him, “What’s to keep you from doing it?”

“The desire to do it,” he said, while continuing to walk into his office and shutting the door behind him.

I thought about putting it in writing, and promising to ask only easy questions and sliding it under the door, but he’s probably going to insist that Miss Radio Personality sign it too, and that could be a deal breaker.

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THAT IDEA of jump-starting the Kings’ playoff chances, firing coach Andy Murray and replacing him with a former cabdriver, ranks right up there with Tim Leiweke’s proclamation: “This is the Kings’ year.”

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Lance H. Beebe:

“It’s nice to see it wasn’t really you being unfair to the McCourts. No fault on you for being a company guy and (going) with (Dwyre’s) wishes. We all have to put up with bosses. I’m looking forward to reading YOUR real thoughts on this season as it progresses.”

No question, it’s going to be a new experience.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.