HoopsHype.com NBA Blogs - Roland Lazenby

It’s been 10 years since Jerry Krause, Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan parted company in a hail of spite and anger after winning six championships together with the Chicago Bulls.

It’s unlikely that the three ever posed together for a photograph, even in their sunnier days, but if they had Krause would have been the short dumpy guy looking entirely out of place.

The caption for that photo might have noted that Jordan was the one with the fierce presence and incredible talent and Jackson was the one with the cunning.

And Krause?

Well, he was the one with big enough balls to stand up to both of them.

It’s unlikely that Krause will ever join the other two in the Hall of Fame, but if he does, the display might well be a huge set of cojones.

Jordan, you may recall, was the most intimidating presence in the history of the game, on and off the court. That was his gift and his curse, all rolled into one. It was his gift because he rode that Alpha Male nature to the heights of the sport, scaring everybody in his path along the way. The curse was that his talent transformed those around him into fawning groupies and sycophants. Everywhere Jordan turned, he encountered people eager to tell him what he wanted to hear.

Even Jackson, hugely intimidating in his own right, chose his words carefully and stepped softly around His Airness.

Krause, on the other hand, charged right in like the bull that he was, cocksure in his own view of things.

Krause was the one who just knew the Cinderella Bulls had to have Bill Cartwright to upgrade their center play with smarts and toughness. So he traded away Charles Oakley, Jordan’s dear friend and partner in crime, to get Cartwright. It was just one of several Krause acts that Jordan never forgave.

“We didn’t win until we got Bill Cartwright,” Krause told me in a long conversation a few months back. “People today don’t realize how good Bill Cartwright was.”

Cartwright was the key to the Bulls’ first three championships from 1991-93, Krause said.

“Then the second group of three (1996-98) started when we got Dennis (Rodman). Without Dennis, we wouldn’t have done that.”

Jordan signed off on the Rodman acquisition, but there were plenty of other times Krause didn’t hesitate to run afoul of the team’s star.

Jordan lobbied hard for the drafting of Joe Wolf, a University of North Carolina star. Krause ignored him and drafted Horace Grant, another key in Chicago’s long, strange run of success.

Since the glory of his playing days ended, Jordan has struggled to find success and happiness in the game he virtually owned as a Bull.

Jordan has never phoned Krause, although he did contact him through an intermediary for the pivotal 2001 NBA draft. Jordan was an owner/executive for the Washington Wizards, and Krause was still working for the Bulls. They were both trying to sort out which big men to take among Tyson Chandler, Kwame Brown and Eddy Curry. Jordan made Brown his infamous selection, while Krause scooped up Chandler and Curry for Chicago.

“Michael didn’t try to pick my brain,” Krause said. “Michael didn’t have any respect for anybody’s brain. He did have Rod Higgins do a lot of his talking.”

Since his Bulls tenure ended a few years back, Krause has returned to his original love, scouting baseball.

Although Jordan is in charge of basketball operations for the Charlotte Bobcats these days and he could probably use Krause’s counsel on personnel issues, it’s not likely that the two will ever mend their differences.

And Krause scoffed when asked if he and Jackson would be getting together any time soon for a reunion of those great Bulls teams.

“I haven’t spoken to Phil since the last day he was with us in 1998,” Krause said.

Like Jordan, it would probably behoove Jackson to slice off a huge piece of humble pie and give Krause a call. After all, Jackson is in Los Angeles trying to duplicate the incredible feat they all accomplished together in Chicago – to build a championship team around a 2 guard.

Krause is quite a student of the game and he loves to point out that Chicago holds a distinction among all the great basketball teams.

“We were the only ones to build a championship team around a 2 guard,” he offered, adding that even attempting such a thing is almost silly. “That’s what I’m proudest of. It’s the hardest thing to do, really, really hard to do.”

WINTER

Their differences are enough to make you wonder how Krause and Jackson ever came to work together, but that in itself is the bittersweet heart of this story.

If Krause ever writes an autobiography, he plans to call it “One Million National Anthems.” That’s because he’s knocked around the games of baseball and basketball for years as a scout, taking bad flights, eating bad food, hanging out at practice, always looking for the hidden truth.

Even before that, when he was a student assistant charting plays at Bradley University, Krause caught his first glimpse of Tex Winter, then the coach at Kansas State. Krause was intrigued by the triangle offense and Winter’s intelligence and integrity.

“I liked what Tex did. I thought, ‘Boy, if he ever got good players that offense would be something.’”

Winter moved around in his coaching career as Krause moved into the netherworld of scouting, all the while keeping an eye on Winter and his teams. When Winter took the job at Northwestern, “we became better friends,” Krause said.

Winter recalls that he spent a lot of time with a projector, going over film, showing Krause a lot about the triangle.

“I wanted to learn about it,” Krause said. He also had hopes of becoming an NBA general manager someday and he offered promises that as soon as he did, he would hire Winter.

“I want you with me,” Krause told Winter. “I want you to teach the big people and to coach the coaches.”

“I always said, ‘I’m gonna hire him as an assistant coach, and I’m not gonna worry who the head coach is going to be,” Krause recalled.

In 1985, Krause’s labor came to fruition. He was hired as GM of the Bulls as Jordan was entering his second season. Sure enough, one of the first calls he made was to Winter.

First, Krause hired Stan Albeck as head coach. But Albeck didn’t want to listen to Winter and didn’t want to use the offense.

Krause also wanted him to hire a goofy young assistant named Phil Jackson. Krause had discovered Jackson, a lanky big guy at the University of North Dakota, while scouting small college ball. Krause had quickly come to believe that Jackson had a bright future. But Albeck absolutely refused to hire Jackson, who was viewed as something of an oddball back in the 1980s.

Krause fired Albeck and promoted a bright young coach, Doug Collins.

Krause wanted Collins to hire Jackson, but the new coach was reluctant.

“I went around some things with Doug, but I finally got Phil on his staff,” Krause said.

Once there, Jackson soon began working with Winter and learning from him. But like Albeck, Collins didn’t want to listen to Winter. He even barred Winter from Bulls practices at one point.

Finally, Krause grew fed up, fired Collins and hired Jackson as his head coach.

At last, Krause had the two people he had dreamed of putting in charge. It was the beginning of a coaching partnership that would win nine NBA titles.

“Phil was the first person to understand how good Tex was,” Krause said. “I give Phil a lot of credit. Phil is the best brain picker I have ever known. Phil has picked Tex’s mind for years. I’m a great brain picker myself. I’ve picked Tex’s mind for years. But Phil is by far the best I’ve ever seen because he took a genius and picked his brain. I hired Phil because he was a brilliant defensive coach. When Phil said he wanted to use Tex’s triangle, I said, ‘That’s great.’”

Krause doesn’t take credit for it, but the two would become the core of a great coaching staff, that included Johnny Bach, Jimmy Rodgers, Frank Hamblen and Jimmy Cleamons.

“I do believe the coaching staff we had in Chicago is the best staff in the history of the game,” Krause said. “They were a tremendous complement to Phil.”

For several years, Jackson and his staff proved the perfect match for Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the assemblage of talent. However, Krause’s strong personality wore on Jackson season after season.

Winter grew to become a moderating factor between the two. He said Jackson spent several years bending over backward to please Krause, but by late 1995, Jackson had grown weary of the process and began to rebel.

That rebellion grew into open warfare by 1996. Some accuse Jackson of using Jordan’s and Pippen’s dislike of Krause to motivate the team and drive the Bulls along a bitter road to their last three championships.

Krause soon found himself caught up in the web of Jackson’s mind games and the coach’s ability to use the media to achieve his goals.

“He’s always operated that way,” Krause said of Jackson. “Believe me, he’s stirred the pot with me a number of times. That’s the way he does things. I know the act, believe me.”

Observers watched Krause’s own hubris feed into the end game in Chicago. The team and coaching staff broke apart after the sixth title in 1998. Krause’s vision of Jackson and Winter had been special, then it turned into his nightmare.

Jackson “rode off into the sunset” was how the media termed the parting. Krause says he was disappointed in 1999 when Winter told him he was leaving the Bulls to accept a job working with Jackson and the Lakers.

“I wasn’t happy about it when he left,” Krause said of Winter, one of the elite few whom Krause calls ‘Coach.’ “I told him that. But Coach is still Coach with me. I don’t call many people coach. You gotta earn that with me.”

Now in his late 60s and still living in the Chicago area, Krause offers a matter-of-fact view of the experience and shows some callouses.

“I’ve got tapes of every game that was played in that era,” he says. “I’ve never looked at ‘em.”

Jackson was voted into the Hall of Fame last year, which served to remind Krause of his frustration at not getting the Hall to recognize Winter as an all-time great coach.

Winter is one of the game’s ultimate “geniuses,” he says.

Krause himself was on the selection committee for the Hall several years ago and resigned in protest over the issue.

“I did everything I could do,” Krause said, adding that the politics of selection has made Winter’s recognition as one of the game’s all-time great coaches an impossibility. “It ain’t gonna happen.”

He has grown to accept that reality as he has everything else that came to pass. He says he has moved on to his new life in baseball and is enjoying it immensely.

Don’t expect a warm reunion of one of pro basketball’s great teams, he says.

“It’s past history. It’s done. Phil is a great coach. For a long time, he was very easy to work with. Then he was not so easy. That’s life. Things change. Phil is Phil. I’m proud I hired him.”

What to do with Lamar Odom?

That’s the nagging question that’s been hanging in the air for the Los Angeles Lakers for a while now, ever since 2004 really, when the team cut loose center Shaquille O’Neal and coach Phil Jackson and the slow-down version of the triangle offense that had won them three championships.

Lakers owner Jerry Buss admitted then that he really didn’t like the triangle.

Buss wanted to return to the glory days of yore, to Showtime, when he had the majestic 6-9 Magic Johnson snaring a rebound on the defensive glass, then running a fastbreak that left opponents dizzy.

With Jackson’s firing, the team brought in Rudy Tomjanovich and began rebuilding the roster into a running team. The 6-9 Odom with the silky smooth open-court skills was a key acquisition for constructing the new-and-improved, up-tempo Lakers. Like the Magic of Showtime, Odom had the size to secure the defensive rebound and the ballhandling skills to power out on the fastbreak. Dude was born to run and feed the ball to teammates filling the lanes.

Only problem was, Buss’s dream soon derailed. First, the NBA of the new century is not the NBA of the 1980s. Jump-starting the pure running game proved oh so hard to do. Rudy T stepped down during a disastrous 2005 season, and that summer the Lakers rehired Jackson and his triangle approach.

All of a sudden, the elegant Odom was marooned. Like a racehorse hitched to a hay wagon.

With the behemoth Shaq gone, Jackson no longer insisted on running the triangle offense at a slug’s pace. Triangle guru Tex Winter had long been urging Jackson to run more, even with Shaq still around.

Odom gave the Lakers an opportunity to go, and to Jackson’s credit, he turned the team loose a bit and found some ways to take advantage of Odom’s gifts.

Still, the triangle features much half-court action, and the Lakers often found themselves slowed in the halfcourt, trying to move through the triangle options.

Lord knows that Odom has tried to get it. He’s always shown the team-first attitude. He’s a lovely, warm, genuine person. The Lakers adore him. But he has never been a good fit for the triangle. His hesitation in it feeds his inconsistency, Tex Winter has fussed over the past three seasons.

At first, Jackson likened Odom to Scottie Pippen, the versatile forward who ran the offense and set the table for Michael Jordan when Jackson coached the Chicago Bulls to six championships.

Alas, we knew Scottie Pippen, and Odom is no Pippen.

The Lakers front office has hemmed and hawed and kicked the tires, thinking about trading Odom several times over the years. But every time they thought about trading him they apparently got visions of what would happen if Odom fell into the hands of an evil genius such as Dr. Mike D’Antoni, once of the Phoenix Suns and now of the New York Knicks.

Basketball hell is giving up a talented player who then becomes the secret ingredient to the success of one of your sworn enemies.

Problem is, Odom’s such a talented, intriguing player that he presents a challenge for Jackson on how to use him. If the coaching staff could only harness that talent. …

The best answer the Lakers coaches could come up with was to move him to power forward, where he could rebound, defend and benefit from mismatches with slower opponents. That worked to a degree, but it left several things unresolved.

First, there was the open-court element of Odom’s talent just going to waste. That’s the kind of thing that keeps coaches awake at night.

Then there were the obvious things exposed in last year’s NBA championship series against the Celtics. Caught in the frontcourt playing in the triangle offense, Odom was often pretty damn good. But there were also numerous times he presented the figure of an unsure, inconsistent player.

The coaching staff was able to rationalize such inefficiency so long as the Lakers were winning and moving through the playoffs. But in the championship series, Los Angeles became a team exposed for its lack of mental toughness and inconsistency – and Odom became something of a poster child for those issues.

Plus the Lakers now face another head-scratcher. Center Andrew Bynum returns from injury this season, which moves Pau Gasol back to power forward. The Lakers hope to run a Twin Towers approach with the two 7-footers, although Winter has his doubts it’ll work in the “Small Is Beautiful” NBA of 2008.

Gasol at power forward would mean moving Odom to small forward, or so it seemed. (Actually, Odom remains an insurance policy. If the Twin Towers doesn’t work, he returns to power forward).

But as every single person in the Western World has learned by now, Jackson opened training camp this year by suggesting that Odom perhaps come off the bench. He made this announcement, of course, without discussing the issue at length with Odom himself.

Now, if you’ve ever played for Jackson, or played on a team that has gone up against Jackson, the last thing you want to do is trigger one of his mind games.

Unfortunately, it’s what Phil does best.

“Phil is the master of mind games,” Jordan said back in 1996 of the master manipulation that Jackson practiced.

Later, Jordan watched Jackson coach the Lakers and he declared, “He’s still the master of mind games, only better. He challenges you mentally. That’s his strong point.”

These mind games come in such variety that many times the people around Jackson proceed through the game without even being aware that they are participating, that he has engaged them in it and manipulated them. (He is magnificent at manipulating the media; reporters often seem least aware of his skill, perhaps because they’re easy suckers for the ego candy he feeds them).

His players are usually a bit smarter than reporters, so they have at least a dim awareness.

“There’s meanings in everything and why things are done not everyone always knows,” Bill Wennington, who played for Jackson in Chicago, explained. “Phil is a really deep thinker, and everything he says seems to have a lot of thought put into it. Most of the things he says have at least two meanings, and at times you have to figure out which one he means. But that’s part of Phil. He wants you to think; he wants you to figure out what’s going on. He doesn’t want you to do things just by rote, and he uses that term a lot. He wants you to think and know what’s going on and why you’re doing things.”

In the process of thinking about what Jackson has said to them, players sometimes discover that there was even a third or fourth intended meaning, Wennington said.

“At times you think back and you find a third or fourth meaning that you maybe didn’t see it right away. He knows how to push buttons and get guys going and get them to achieve goals that maybe other people can’t get.”

Odom, having played for Jackson for three seasons, is fully aware of his mind games. That didn’t stop the forward from complaining openly and vehemently about the idea of coming off the bench.

Perhaps Odom trumped Jackson by responding vociferously to the coach’s trial balloon.

After all, Jackson abruptly changed tactics. Now, it seems, the Lakers are ready to try Odom handling the ball and playing some point guard, or point forward, with veteran Derek Fisher moving to off guard and Kobe Bryant moving to small forward.

Just maybe, though, as Bill Wennington would allege, this is what Jackson wanted all along.

Some veteran Lakers observers might fuss that Odom can’t play point guard for the team because he still doesn’t know the triangle well enough.

Then again, Fisher has always been able to get the Lakers into their half-court offense. He knows the triangle well. If he’s there at 2 guard, he can easily take over in those half-court situations. And maybe, like Ron Harper did in Chicago, Odom will finally get the hang of the triangle.

And Bryant at the small forward? That’s where the Lakers like to play him on offense anyway.

Maybe Jackson had wanted to move Odom from power forward all along, so he simply challenged Odom’s status as a starter. Suddenly Odom was so worried about being a starter – he has been a starter his entire basketball life – that he didn’t bother anymore about being a power forward.

Maybe that’s what Jackson wanted all along, that, as usual, he was playing chess a couple of moves ahead of everybody else.

Fact is, with Jackson, you never really know. It’s only after he’s gotten his way that you’re left to figure out what really happened.

Across the continent in Charlotte, where he sits these days as an owner/operator of the Bobcats while keeping an interested eye on Jackson and the Lakers, Jordan is surely smiling.

He knows Phil usually manages to get what he wants.