Columnist Dean Juipe: Hey Phil, maybe you’re just lucky

Dean Juipe

Friday, Nov. 22, 2002 | 10:11 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

So few critical words have ever been written about Phil Jackson that when a chance like this comes along the temptation to pounce on him is too great to resist.

Jackson, of course, is the winningest coach by percentage in the history of the National Basketball Association. He is into his 13th year as a head coach and his teams have not only won nine league championships but have never finished lower than second place in their division.

He's what winning is all about: thoughtful, poised, even debonair. Mix in his Zen beliefs and Jackson, 57, is the definitive thinking-man's coach.

Yet he has also been the recipient of at least a couple strokes of spectacularly good fortune.

While coaching the Chicago Bulls from 1989 through '98, Jackson had the luxury of calling plays for Michael Jordan. Not only that, Jordan's support group included such standouts as Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright, Toni Kukoc, Ron Harper and Dennis Rodman.

When Jackson came to the Los Angeles Lakers in 1999, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant were poised to explode into superstardom -- and did. Factor in the presence at various times of secondary stars such as Harper, Rick Fox, A.C. Green, Glen Rice and Robert Horry, and the Lakers are the league's reigning three-time champions.

But look at what's happening right now: O'Neal hasn't played a game yet this season and the Lakers are a very uncustomary 3-9 going into tonight's televised home game with Chicago; they're only 49-43 without him over the years.

Jackson didn't win any league titles when Jordan missed all of one season and most of another to pursue a baseball career, and, based on the evidence of the current season, he isn't going to win any more league titles unless O'Neal comes back strong.

A vengeful critic could surmise that Jackson has been just plain lucky to have had Jordan, O'Neal and Bryant in their heydays.

O'Neal is tentatively due back tonight after experiencing his own 9-11 trauma. In his case, he had surgery Sept. 11 on his arthritic right big toe and his rehab has been slowed by a lingering soreness in the digit.

Without him dominating in the middle, the Lakers more closely resemble the crosstown Clippers than they do a championship team. Even with Bryant leading the team in scoring in each of the team's previous 12 games, Los Angeles has lost five straight on the road and Tuesday night came within a basket of matching the franchise record for fewest points in a game -- which had been set only six games earlier.

Worse yet -- and, arguably, an indictment of sorts of Jackson's coaching ability -- both he and Bryant have accused the team of not playing hard in O'Neal's absence. Another indictment: Despite his many successes, only once has Jackson been named the NBA's coach of the year.

Criticizing a man of Jackson's repute at a time like this is clearly kicking him when he's down -- or at least taunting him while he's hunched over.

But he's too suave, too deep to take offense, and he may only be thinking what Bryant has said: "What goes around comes around."

In other words, anyone looking to get a shot in at Jackson or the Lakers had better do it now.