The Lakers are moving quickly after the last minute firing of head coach Mike Brown on Friday. It looks like the Lake show already has a predessceor in mind. Phil Jackson seems to the number one choice as the Lakers next coach.
The Lakers plan on meeting with Jackson on Saturday morning to make sure he is interested in the job. The team realized a slew of things stemming from the 101-77 Lakers’ victory Friday over Golden State, primarily that the players wanted Jackson and fans wanted him too, in case their second-half chants of his name weren’t enough of a tipoff.
Ultimately, Lakers management wants Jackson too. It’s just a matter of where Jackson stands right now. People who have spoken with him in recent weeks say he enjoys his life away from the game but is also intrigued by the Lakers’ roster and the opportunity to return to the only franchise he has known since 1999.
Jackson left the Lakers after the 2010-11 season, and at least one prominent player said he wanted a chance at redemption on Jackson’s behalf.”The one thing that’s kind of always bothered me is that in his last year I wasn’t able to give him my normal self,” Kobe Bryant said Friday night. “I was playing on one leg and that’s kind of always eaten away at me. The last year of his career I wasn’t able to give him all I had.
“He’s too great of a coach to have it go out that way. That’s my personal sentiment. I took it to heart because I couldn’t give it everything I had because I physically couldn’t. My knee was shot. That’s always bothered me.”
Bryant’s right knee affected him toward the end of that season, which ended with the Lakers being swept by Dallas in the Western Conference semifinals. Bryant ended up undergoing a cutting-edge procedure on his knee in Germany later that summer.
Lakers center Dwight Howard said he would also be fine playing for Jackson.
“I think it would be great,” Howard told The Times. “He’s a guy I could learn a lot from. But until he comes, we have to put all of our faith into Bernie” Bickerstaff, the Lakers’ interim coach. Former New York Knicks Coach Mike D’Antoni is a candidate for the job if Jackson turns it down. If you let the fans tell it, they know who they want to coach the Lakers this year.
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