If Jerry Buss really wants Phil Jackson back to coach the Los Angeles Lakers, now would be the time for the team owner to speak up.
Don’t hold your breath.
Although Buss could have lauded Jackson any time over the past two years as the Lakers won back-to-back NBA titles, the owner’s silence on the matter has [...]
Forgive Jeanie Buss, but she gets a little crazy after a Lakers loss.
Take Game 2 of L.A.’s title bout with the Boston Celtics, for example. After the Lakers took it in the shorts, she started telling friends that she was worried her father, team owner Jerry Buss, already had a deal with assistant coach Brian [...]
Yes, we all know that Phil Jackson is the smartest basketball coach in the known universe. So it stands to reason that, with his prodigious memory, lofty IQ and exquisite deductive powers, Jackson just doesn’t screw up very often.
Yet when he does make a mistake, it’s often a real lulu, a stupendous boner.
For example, there [...]
Jeanie Buss comes clean now? It strains credulity.
I reported more than two months ago that there was some conflict within the Los Angeles Lakers, that Phil Jackson (Jeanie’s boyfriend) might not come back to coach the team next year because her father (Lakers owner Jerry Buss) might not want him back.
Jackson himself confirmed as much [...]
Of all the situations spawned by the internal division of the Los Angeles Lakers, the dealings with Andrew Bynum seem the weirdest.
That was Tex Winter’s description of the coaching staff’s relationship with Bynum. Not mine. And that was almost two years ago, well before Winter suffered a debilitating stroke.
At the time, the Lakers were nursing [...]
If you read closely between the lines of his recent comments, you can actually hear Lakers coach Phil Jackson mumbling “Uncle.”
The big guy is giving in. He’s not going to go tit for tat with team owner Jerry Buss over his coaching contract for next season and beyond.
Speaking to the media this week, Jackson acknowledged [...]
I guess I’m flattered.
First Jeanie Buss and now Lakers owner Jerry Buss have come forward to address my observations about the organization’s inner conflicts, particularly the job status of coach Phil Jackson (Jeanie’s boyfriend who used to wear a soul patch).
At least Jeanie addressed me by name. Jerry chose longtime Lakers writer Steve Springer to [...]
So it is a poker game.
Lakers coach Phil Jackson confirmed as much recently when he opened up about Jerry Buss, the team’s 77-year-old owner.
“He’s a gambler,” Jackson told reporters before a recent game in Los Angeles. “He knows the odds, he knows when to take the risks. I think he carries that sense of this [...]
