One thing I find fascinating about Phil Jackson is the way he has changed his look over the years. Above is a photo of him from his early days with the Bulls, for whom he was an assistant coach before taking over the head coaching position for the 1989-90 season. Look at how ridiculous Jackson looks in this photo. Compare that to the Jackson who looked like a sophisticated version of the Colonel when the Bulls went 72-10 in the '95-96 season before winning their fourth championship, and then the numerous manifestations of Jackson we've seen in Los Angeles, beginning when he shaved off the trademark moustache for the 2002-03 season. Somewhere along the line he had a soul patch and later a goatee, then even tried cutting down his hair really short and then gave coming his hair to the side a shot. Somewhere between the first and second Bulls three-peats he adopted glasses, and later he shed the normal glasses that merely aided his eyesight and went to the stylistic glasses that Hollywood types wear.
Make no mistake, Phil Jackson has embraced the Los Angeles lifestyle. He lives on the beach. He dates his boss's daughter, who appears to have had more plastic surgery than Liz Taylor and Michael Jackson combined and who once bared all for Playboy (may not want to click on this link if you're at work, or if your wife, girlfriend or mother is nearby...as if anyone actually reads this blog). He changes his look as often as Cameron Diaz changes her hairstyle (or as often as Dennis Rodman changes his hair color, and perhaps coaching Rodman for three years was the inspiration behind Jackson's chameleon approach to his look). Somewhere along the line, Phil Jackson became LA.
I point all of this out because it makes the mere idea of him ever leaving LA sound ridiculous. Yet if you ask me, that's exactly what Jerry Reinsdorf should seek to make happen. Reinsdorf is the owner of the Bulls, now as he was when Michael Jordan was drafted in 1984 and when Phil Jackson coached the team to six championships in eight years, presiding over Jordan and Scottie Pippen, from 1991-1998. The Bulls have been a completely irrelevant franchise since the day Jordan announced his second retirement in January of 1999. They've made a handful of playoff appearances, never gotten past the second round and gained their most attention for an epic seven-game series against the Celtics last season, a first round series that they lost.
In a sports-crazed market, the Bulls are in position to dominate for the next 10 years. They have one legitimate young building block in Derrick Rose, a true high quality energy/little things inside presence in Joakim Noah, plus a boatload of reasonably young capable supporting players like Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich and Taj Gibson. They're missing two things: a star player capable of making them a championship contender and a coach who knows how to create chemistry from his players, both in personality and in on-court play.
LeBron James is a free agent and everyone seems to agree that going to Chicago would be the best career move for him. Chicago is a huge market, he could be Jordan's successor for the franchise and with Rose, Noah and Deng in place, the Bulls would immediately become a championship contender with him on board (plus the Bulls have the cap room to sign another high-end player with LeBron; perhaps Amar'e Stoudemire or Chris Bosh?). The Bulls also have proven that they can be a worldwide power (not just an NBA power or an American sports power) if they have a global icon player, as anyone who remembers the 1990s recalls, which should put to bed the notion that LeBron needs to go to New York in order to maximize his global icon status. Chad Ford of the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader reports that three different general managers believe he is headed to Chicago (who they got this information from is anyone's guess). The Bulls clearly have set themselves up to get LeBron.
Will they? I have no idea. Maybe LeBron is tired of the cold weather and decides he'd like to go somewhere warm (Miami? The Clippers?). Maybe he wants to go to the West to challenge Kobe (The Clippers? Portland? Dallas?). Maybe he wants to be in the Mecca (the Knicks). I don't know. But I do know that if Reinsdorf is going to open up the coffers for LeBron, it is a fruitless move if he doesn't bring along a high quality coach. And as much as everyone keeps reading the John Calipari tea leaves, the truly bold move would be for Reinsdorf to go and get Jackson.
There are plenty of reasons why Jackson wouldn't ever leave LA. Like, he likes being an LA guy. He's fucking the boss's daughter (who happens to be a team president). The weather is warm. He coaches Kobe who, as of now, has to be considered the best player in the league (which I state begrudgingly and acceptingly for the first time ever). There's a pretty good shot the Lakers are going to win it all this year, and they will likely enter next season as the favorite to win it all again.
On the flip side, Jackson's contract is up after this season. Jerry Buss has never been the biggest Phil fan because Buss prefers the glitz of Showtime to the methodical success of the Triangle (and because, you know, Phil is fucking his daughter). He also doesn't like paying head coaches a fortune and Jackson pulls in a reported $12 million per season. In fact, he's pretty much made it clear that he won't pay Jackson $12 million next season.
The boss's daughter has said the guy she's fucking will be coaching in the league next year, somewhere. Of course, she isn't sure where because of said father's reservations about paying him so much. So it's no given Jackson will return to the Lakers. The Lakers are also an increasingly aging team that only has another year or two to contend. And I can't believe Jackson actually likes having to deal with Ron Artest, who is incredibly signed for four more years after this one.
And, make no mistake, Jackson has an enormous ego. He's the greatest postseason coach of all-time and he knows it. No coach in the last 40 years has ever done a better job of getting players to play together. No coach has ever successfully forced players to hold their own egos in check for the good of the team better than Jackson (although he too has had his failings here, as the 2004 and 2008 NBA Finals displayed). Don't you think there is a large part of Jackson that revels in the fact that Jordan couldn't win a title until he came on, that the Shaq and Kobe show couldn't win a title until he came on, and that Kobe couldn't win a title without Shaq until Jackson returned from a one-season exile that Kobe fully endorsed? I do. And I also think Jackson loves the idea of coaching LeBron to championships when LeBron has yet to win one.
That would be four different superstars of sorts that Jackson will have lifted to championship glory that failed to do so without him (and I'm counting the 2009 Lakers as lifting Kobe to a previously unattained ring because Kobe never had won a championship as the main player on his team before then). And you know that appeals to Jackson's enormous ego.
Jackson stated a few weeks ago that he hoped to return to the Lakers. Of course, he also said he was only 90% certain that if he was coaching it would be with the Lakers, leaving the door slightly ajar to coach elsewhere, much like Jordan did when he said he was 99.9% sure he would never play again when he retired in 1999, only to return in the autumn of 2001. And while I believe his preference is to coach the Lakers, what if the Lakers demand he reduces his salary significantly and what if the Bulls offer him the moon and LeBron?
I think Jackson would jump at that chance, so long as he can get over living on the beach and be willing to readjust to Chicago winters. His problems when he left Chicago were never with Reinsdorf; they were with former general manager Jerry Krause who no longer is with the Bulls (amazingly, Reinsdorf has hired Krause as a scout for the White Sox baseball team). The man running the front office is John Paxson, who started for the first two of Jackson's six championship teams with the Bulls, hit the championship-winning shot for the third championship team and was an assistant coach under Jackson on the fourth before giving up coaching because of how much time it consumed. Point being, I'm pretty sure Jackson wouldn't have any reservations about working for Reinsdorf and Paxson.
If I'm Reinsdorf, I'm breaking out my 1998 rolodex and calling Jackson's people (is he still represented by Todd Musburger?) and telling him that he is going to be offered a three-year, $45 million deal with a fourth-year option for another $15 million, with a $1 million bonus for reaching the NBA Finals and another $1 million bonus for winning the championship. The deal is entirely contingent upon signing LeBron. And once July 1 rolls around, I'm rolling out the red carpet for LeBron, offering him the max, letting him know that Jackson will be the coach if he signs and letting him know that they'll spend the money on another player as well (Stoudemire? Bosh?). And if everyone agrees, a joint news conference will be held on July 9 or July 10 introducing Jackson as the coach, LeBron as the new No. 6 on the team and (insert second player here) as the new low-post scorer.
(A few days later, I'm quietly announcing a 20% increase in ticket prices too.)
The money spent on those three would be approximately what Reinsdorf spent on Jordan, Jackson and Pippen in the 1997-98 season (incredible, given that it's 12 years later and salaries have inflated; also goes to show just how comically underpaid Pippen was) so it's not like Reinsdorf hasn't paid this kind of money before. Besides, he'll more than recoup that money and then some with increased ticket sales, increased jersey sales and deeper playoff runs (and, perhaps, the sale of championship merchandise).
It makes sense. And I understand that there's a lot of moving parts here, like Buss not offering Jackson enough to stay in LA or LeBron's free agency tour, but if Reinsdorf has any business sense and any interest in returning the Bulls to the glory they once knew--when they were not just the league's glamour franchise but the world's glamour franchise--he'll do everything he possibly can to make this happen.
Will he do it? Um, I doubt it.
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