HoopsHype.com NBA Blogs - Roland Lazenby

For Phil Jackson, endings have always been much more powerful than beginnings.

But what would you expect from a guy who was raised by two itinerant fundamentalist preachers? Jackson grew up a son of the Northern Plains, in one Montana community after another, always facing “the rapture,” the belief that the world was soon coming to its glorious end.

“Every Sunday since I was born, the apocalypse has been coming next year,” Jackson once told Knicks teammate Bill Bradley in trying to explain his parents’ view of life. Jackson’s young world would be shaped by a growing awareness of his mother’s intense devotion and her focus on the moment of Christ’s return, what she called “the rapture of the saints,” and he would spend his childhood years anticipating that rapture.

Those childhood experiences brought him moments of terror, he once revealed.

And so he learned the power of endings. Anyone who doubts that only has to recall how he used the “end game” to motivate and focus a crazily fractured and distracted Chicago Bulls team to win the 1998 NBA championship. Jackson employed every mind game possible to squeeze a sixth title out of that club and even gave it a tagline as he was doing it, “The Last Dance.”

Hey, he’s a guy who’s made millions off a book titled “The Last Season.”

So Jackson’s recent noise about retiring after the 2010 campaign has to be taken with a grain of context. And that context is this: With Phillip Douglas Jackson you never know where the mind games end and the stark reality begins. That’s part of his motivational success in a business where you’re trying to shape, guide and control headstrong young millionaires in short pants.

We do know this fact. Tex Winter has worked with Jackson closely for years. He’s the guy’s mentor. Winter says that he’s never seen Phil tighten down the control like he has this season.

That, of course, has everything to do with the fact that he’s trying to push a talented young team to a championship, a talented young team that had its mental fragility exposed last year against the Boston Celtics.

It wasn’t easy for Jackson growing up with the isolation of being a son of the Holy Rollers, those folks who worshipped in tents and talked in tongues and based their lives on the notion that the world was going to end any day. But that experience is just one of many things in Jackson’s powerful bag of tricks, things that he has drawn upon over the course of his masterful career.

When Jackson coached the Bulls, some people in that organization chafed at things that he did, as have other coaches around the league. There’s the perception that he’s supremely arrogant.

But as one Bulls official once told me, “If you’re going to coach Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen you better have some shit with you.”

Jackson has always had some shit with him.

Maybe he is planning to retire. Maybe he isn’t. Only Phil knows. And maybe even he doesn’t know.

But we all know this: nothing in life is guaranteed. The opportunity for the Lakers to win is now. The sense of urgency must be huge.

That would seem simple and clear enough to most folks. But the young people in the NBA cash very big checks. They are veal, fed on the milk of potential. It’s always about what they’re going to do down the road. That’s how they’re evaluated. That’s why it’s so easy for them to miss the point, to make huge assumptions that just aren’t true. And in the process, they let the opportunity of a lifetime slip away.

That’s already a bitter cud that Jackson and Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal will have to taste every single day for the rest of their lives. Their silliness in 2004 (when they broke up a team that had won three titles) has cost the three of them dearly in terms of championships won.

They all acted like big brats and left huge winnings, the winnings of a competitive lifetime, on the table. They could have challenged Bill Russell and his Celtics. Instead, all they challenged was our patience. The three of them have been stalked by that truth since the day they parted in 2004 in a fury of bad adolescent gas.

So, it’s rapture time for Phil and his boys. It’s one of his many ways of saying it’s time to put aside childish things, time to focus furiously on the task at hand. There is no tomorrow.

Repeat that. There is no tomorrow.

If you think any other way, you’re just not a competitor. If you entertain any other thought, then the only rings you’re going to have are the smoke rings you’re blowing up each other’s asses.

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Phoenix Suns fans these days are just starting to understand how Michael Jordan felt.

Jordan, you may recall, punched Steve Kerr in the face in a 1995 Chicago Bulls practice.

Kerr, as I remember, had the audacity to stand up to Jordan during one of those scrimmages where His Airness was heaping abuse on teammates.

Kerr is the GM of the Suns these days, and it seems he’s up to his old tricks.

And this is where things get dicey. If you loved the old Suns regime led by the mad scientist of basketball, Mike D’Antoni, then you probably want a shot at Kerr yourself.

On the other hand, if you’re less of a dreamer and you subscribe to what, 75 years of basketball precedent and history? If you do that, then you’re probably inclined to agree with Kerr that if the goal in the NBA is to win a championship, then the Suns probably needed to change to a philosophy that actually has a chance of producing that outcome.

The circumstances make for a fascinating debate and one very ugly transition.

That transition, of course, began in the middle of last season when Kerr traded the Matrix, Shawn Marion, an open-court machine of a forward, to the Miami Heat for Shaquille O’Neal.

At the time, I equated the move to owning a garage filled with sleek Ferraris and suddenly adding to it a lumbering Mack Diesel belching black smoke.

That’s exactly what the situation has proved to be.

After last season, D’Antoni departed Phoenix for a job with the New York Knicks, where he has resumed his mad, fun experiment. And I must admit that I love watching his Knicks play these days (I always love the rebirth of a dead franchise), just as I loved watching those Suns of the past few seasons running up and down the floor, jacking up shots, sharing the ball, scoring lots of points and even giving an occasional nod to defense.

By the way, I also loved Pete Maravich’s performances with the old Atlanta Hawks. I remember my shock at interviewing Richie Guerin, the tough old pro who coached those Hawks, and hearing him say that he was nauseated by the Pistol’s approach to the game.

So this is hardly a new argument. The concept of basketball as entertainment began to take root back in the 1930s and ’40s with the Harlem Globetrotters and other barnstormers. They started out playing the game straight but soon found they could make much more money and gain much more attention if they focused on entertainment and the gags.

Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics took an early stand on this issue. Yes, he finally agreed to take the fancy dan passer Bob Cousy as his point guard, but Red didn’t stop till he got the no-nonsense Bill Russell as his post player.

Those old Celtics teams won lots of championships, and even though the game changed, Red didn’t allow dancers or silly marketing games in his Garden.

For Red and the long line of great competitors of the sport, it’s all about the winning of championships. Nothing else matters. Let me repeat that. Nothing else matters.

I love being entertained by the Knicks and those Suns of D’Antoni’s. Do I care if they win championships? Not a lick. I’m not a serious fan of either team.

D’Antoni’s point, of course, is that he can win a championship playing with an up-tempo, quick-shooting style. He’s swimming upstream against years of evidence to the contrary, but I’m entertained at watching him try.

Kerr, on the other hand, has a different experience with the game. He’s played for two great coaches — Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich— who built multiple championships around great post players. Jordan is the game’s greatest weapon, and Tim Duncan and O’Neal aren’t far behind.

Kerr saw a chance to get O’Neal and figured that with the right approach there was still a championship or two with the Diesel. Last year he struggled, but this year O’Neal is showing signs of rounding into form (at least that’s what longtime Shaq critic Tex Winter thinks. Even so, it’s not so much about building around Shaq per se as it is building an organization that relies on a sound system of basketball).

Kerr, meanwhile, has been busy disassembling the old team and building something that has a chance to win. I know this. I’ve spent some time over the years discussing basketball philosophy with Kerr and he knows what he’s doing.

I also understand that Steve Nash is decidedly unhappy with the circumstances. He’s had a lot of fun and earned a lot of recognition playing a key role in the D’Antoni experiment. But understand this: Until somebody actually wins a championship playing that madcap way, that’s all it is: a fun experiment.

The guy I feel sorry for is new Suns coach Terry Porter. He’s a solid basketball guy who’s stuck in the driver’s seat during a head-spinning transition. And most real transitions are like this. Very, very ugly until all at once they turn pretty. The longer they take, the uglier they are.

With the NBA’s complicated personnel rules and salary-cap system, transitions are oh so slow and tedious, not to mention dangerous. Taking a stand in the NBA can cost you your job in a blink. That’s why most GMs don’t want to take a real big stance. They want to go with the flow and cash those big checks until the vibe runs out.

Kerr’s far from perfect, but he’s got way too much integrity to sell out like that. He’s gonna try to do the right thing, no matter what.

The thing that may seem curious to most fans is that they remember the old Steve Kerr, the son of the career diplomat, the darling of University of Arizona basketball, the fan favorite in both Chicago and San Antonio, the guy who hit that winning shot for Bulls title no. 5, the guy who made those big shots for the Spurs.

What I recall most about Kerr is what a great voice of reason he was for the Bulls back in 1998 when the team was being ripped apart by a battle between Jackson and Jordan on one side and team management on the other. In those days, Kerr was the guy with the thoughtful, clear approach, the smooth communication.

Why doesn’t he play that card more today and talk more to the fans in Phoenix?

The answer there is pretty clear too. Kerr has never been one to engage in shouting matches or heated conflict, although he’s not afraid of taking a stand either (Jordan can attest to that).

No, when it comes to difficult transitions in basketball, it’s most about biting your lip and getting ‘er done. It’s about walking the walk, not talking the talk right now.

I have no doubt that if ownership stays behind him (and of course that depends a sophisticated fan base that loves and cares about winning NBA basketball) then Kerr will see this transition through. And Phoenix will have a shot at winning a title.

Kerr knows that championship moments mean so much more than a little nightly fun. And he’s always been willing to take a punch in the face to prove it.

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Tex Winter never pays much attention to what Shaquille O’Neal has to say. “He’s colorful, isn’t he?” the 86-year-old hoops guru says with a chuckle.

On the other hand, Winter watches very closely what Mr. O’Neal, the Phoenix Suns center, does on the floor.

It takes a lot to impress Winter, Phil Jackson’s longtime mentor and now a consultant to the Los Angeles Lakers. However, Winter admits to being impressed with what he’s seen of Shaq this year. “I think he’s in pretty good shape,” Winter said. “He’s a little thinner, a little better conditioned, a little more mobile, moving a little better than he has the last few seasons.”

Winter has viewed with curiosity the Suns’ acquisition last season of the behemoth O’Neal. At the time, Winter said it didn’t make clear sense, adding the big, lumbering fella to a team that was built to run. But having watched them adjust, Winter has come to believe that the Suns probably need to embrace O’Neal a little more than they have, to go ahead and find their new identity. In Shaq’s parlance, that would translate to “give me the ball and let the big dog eat.” “There’s a certain way you have to play with Shaq,” Winter observed. “Get him the ball on the low post, and go from there.”

A guardian of the game who never hesitates to criticize a superstar, Winter had his conflicts with O’Neal when the big guy was with the Lakers. Winter, though, conceded that “Shaq’s probably not getting it enough at this point.”

Of course, it probably would work better for the Lakers if the Suns remain conflicted and caught at crossed purposes. The competition in the Western Conference is already tough enough. O’Neal had recently implied that Jackson was somehow to blame for O’Neal’s feuding with Kobe Bryant.

Winter has long been on the record that Jackson, as Lakers coach, bent over backward to coddle O’Neal to the detriment of Bryant. As for O’Neal’s allegation that Jackson was behind the conflicts with Bryant, longtime Laker observers know that O’Neal had an aggressive agenda against Bryant months before Jackson or Winter came to the team in 1999.

Winter also paid little mind to the recent dust-up between the Lakers Trevor Ariza and teammate Sasha Vujacic. Ariza got upset with Vujacic for taking a badly missed three-pointer instead of moving the ball. The two had to be separated by teammates. Winter himself was never shy about making his opinions known. Lakers assistant Brian Shaw chuckles about Tex getting upset with him when he was a Lakers guard.

So it’s not surprising that Winter didn’t see anything too wrong with Ariza getting ticked off.

“I don’t blame him,” Winter said. “Good for him. I’ve always tried to let people know they’ve gotta play the game right. I don’t like people to discredit the game of basketball.”

Winter also noted that Jackson moved quickly to talk to Ariza about losing his temper. “Phil won’t let things hang,” Winter said. Of course, assistants sometimes had to step in back in the day when Winter, then Jackson’s assistant with the Chicago Bulls, would get upset with Luc Longley or some other transgressor.

Then again, there’s much about Ariza that brings the days of yore to mind for Winter. “Ariza’s got tremendous reach. He’s active,” Winter said. “When he’s playing defense he’s a little bit like (Scottie) Pippen with those long arms and the way he anticipates the passing lanes and gets his hands on the ball. “I’m not saying he’s another Pippen,” Winter added quickly but acknowledged that Jackson and his Lakers coaching staff have mentioned Ariza and Pippen in the same breath.

Longtime observers will recall that the great Pippen at 6-7 offered tremendous defensive versatility. He was able to sink into the lane to help defend the post, then showed the quickness to recover to the perimeter. “Ariza plays a little differently than Pippen on the help defense,” Winter said.

But the 6-8 fourth year forward reminds Winter of Pippen, Michael Jordan and Ron Harper, the Bulls triumvirate that ruled the league as stealers from 1996 to 1998. “Pippen and Jordan and Harper were good at laying back there and then jumping in and playing the passing lanes,” Winter said. “That’s why we (the Bulls) were a very good defensive club with those three guys. Ariza does that too. We need more like him.”

Winter was quick to add that this 2008-09 version of the Lakers is showing much defensive promise. Kobe Bryant has offered encouraging flashes of inspired defensive play. “Kobe will overplay and gamble a lot,” Winter said, acknowledging that such a ploy was also a Jordan trait. “But Kobe doesn’t lay back and come up with the basketball.”

It seems Winter is suggesting that Bryant add such a wrinkle to his portfolio, so keep a lookout for that at some point this season. “They’re working hard on defense,” Winter said of the Lakers. “They’re not the old Bulls. They’ll have their own character.”

The Lakers, of course, will have to improve dramatically as a defensive unit if they want to erase the memories of the hurting that the Boston Celtics put on them in the championship series in June. The pain of that loss seems to have added purpose to Jackson’s approach as well. “It’s motivated him to the point that he wants to get with it,” Winter said of the Lakers coach. “And he is getting with it. He’s controlling things a lot more than he did in the past.”

Then again, Jackson has more to control this time around. The Lakers are a very deep team. “He likes it,” Winter said of Jackson’s attitude toward the depth.

Asked if he thought this Los Angeles club has even more depth than the great Bulls teams that won six championships, the coach replied, “We had some pretty good subs in Chicago. But I don’t know if we had a team where the subs can play as many minutes as these Lakers guys can.”

Winter also is pleased that Bryant “has settled in to a team role” despite transgressions here or there that have left Jackson complaining a bit to reporters. “Kobe’s gotta hit shots,” Winter said. “He’s gotta take those outside shots. They’re important to the team. He cant’ go to the basket all the time.”

It’s a question of balance for Bryant, Winter said. The All-Star guard has to keep a steady mix between shooting and driving. That sounds simple, but it’s never easy to measure balance over the course of a game. “Kobe just can’t rely on one thing or the other too much,” Winter said. “Kobe wants to involve everybody else, and that’s good. But sometimes it’s maybe too much so. With players like Kobe and Jordan, it’s always a question of balance.”

Winter is preparing to rejoin the team in Los Angeles after taking a couple of weeks away to deal with the painful shingles that have bothered him for three years. Seemingly concerned about his mentor, Jackson suggested Winter contact his “holistic” doctor in New York who helped Jackson deal with hip pain. Winter has made the contact and is hoping for results.

Meanwhile, he’s eager to get back to the team to take his mind off the pain. Winter was also mindful of the passing this week of Pete Newell. Winter recalled that his Kansas State team went to Berkeley in December of 1958 and beat Newell’s Cal team that went on to win the NCAA championship that spring of 1959. Winter’s K State team spent part of that reason ranked number one in the country. But his club lost to Cincinnati and Oscar Robertson in the Midwest Regional Final, 85-75.

Newell’s club went on to beat Robertson and Cincy in the national semifinals before nipping West Virginia and Jerry West for the NCAA title. “Pete Newell was a great coach and especially a great teacher,” Winter said.

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