Phil Jackson Will Return If Lakers Repeat

[The Regime]

If the Lakers win, Jackson will be back.

 

There is no way he will walk away from this team and a chance to complete a fourth three-peat, and has admitted as much several times this season.

 

"Yeah, if we win, it's almost imperative to give it another shot," Jackson said. "We [would] have a chance to do something special and unique again."

 

If this were a decade ago and Jackson, 64, weren't in the twilight of his career, maybe I'd put more stock in him packing up, going to the highest bidder in the offseason and turning around the fortunes of another franchise, but that's not the case.

 

After Bryant signed his three-year extension in April, which meant the quintet of Bryant, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom and Ron Artest were locked up for at least the next three years, I asked Jackson whether he would coach this group through its run before riding off into the sunset. He looked at me as if I were crazy and said, "No."

 

"I'm not going to buy into anything for three or four years," Jackson said. "I don't think that's in the cards at all. But I can look at a season, one year at a time right now, and feel comfortable with the commitment I can generate to get through another year and push the team hard enough to get them through a year. When you talk about those long-term things, there's got to be a change here in the near future where there needs to be a successive coach who is able to deal with these players, help them on with their game."

 

Do you really think a coach who isn't willing to commit to coaching for more than the next year or two is going to pack up and start coaching somewhere else? Furthermore, if you're a team looking to hire a coach to turn around your team and attract a free agent like James, how secure would you be in your decision when Jackson says he's only comfortable signing a one-year contract?

 

Bryant seems quietly confident Jackson will be back as his coach next season and is cautiously optimistic he might even be able to get him to coach him through his contract extension despite Jackson's claims that coaching that long isn't in the cards for him.

 

After he signed his extension, Bryant talked with Jackson and told him there was one person left who hadn't signed a contract extension and that he was waiting for him to do so in the offseason.

 

"He's a big part of me as a player," Bryant said after signing his extension. "I enjoy playing for him, and I made it very clear to him today that I would love to see him be back."

[Make It Naaaashty]

Good for L.A., gives them another reason to beat the C's.

[bigdog17k]

He wins in 3's, and Chicago just got a coach lmao. Phil'd.