Just Sit There and Talk, Phil

I asked the Lakers if Phil Jackson would agree to come down from his mountaintop, sit and have our first ever one-on-one conversation.

In preparation, I practiced sitting on the floor in a yoga position just in case the Weirdo had that in mind; purchased a nice Hawaiian shirt, the kind he likes to wear before jumping into the hot tub with Jeanie; and then put on the purple-beaded $110 “perspective necklace” I had bought to be just like Phil.

“Where’s the flip-flops?” Jackson asked when we got together, and suddenly I felt like Kobe Bryant, wondering what I have to do to please the guy.

Jackson sat down, thankfully on a chair, and I began by telling him that I found him weird. “Do you find yourself weird?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Not weird. Different.”

“So instead of Phil the Weird, you prefer I call you Phil the Different?” I asked. “Come on, you’ve got to admit you’re really out there. You’re probably not that far removed from Vic the Brick.”

Jackson grinned. “We can communicate.”

Before I asked about the next book he’s going to write, what a paycheck looks like when you’re making $10 million, why he’s so aloof and condescending, and if he agreed he’s the one to blame for Kobe and Shaq breaking up, I wanted to know, like most of us, if he has already eliminated the Lakers from the playoffs.

“No,” he said with a grin. “Everybody will be laughing when we go to the championships. They’ll be like, ‘Where did this guy get this from?’ ”

“But from what we’ve seen so far,” I said, “this looks like a .500 team at best, finishing 10th or 11th.”

“From what we’ve seen, yes,” he agreed. “But that’s the tip of the iceberg. We’re growing as a team from game to game. ...”

“But what if you’re a bust, and can’t turn this around; are you going to run for the [Montana] hills?”

Jackson laughed. “I wouldn’t run, but if I can’t do the job, I’m certainly not going to take $30 million and hang in there and suffer while things go awry. I might realize my effectiveness is not good for the team; that was a big consideration in coming back: Could I still be effective?”

If he can get something more out of Kwame Brown than dead man walking up and down the court, he’ll be more miracle worker than effective coach. Can’t wait to see what he’s really got to say about the stiff in his next book.

“I’ve not started taking notes,” he said. “There definitely will be another book, but I don’t expect to write it until this experience is over.”

On the subject of past experiences, I said, “I say you’re the reason Shaq and Kobe broke up. I blame you. I look at it like this: They’re paying this joker -- and that’s you -- $6 million and he’s just sitting there letting them work it out when he should’ve been on top of them making it work.”

(I tried, but as you can see, it’s difficult getting a rise out of someone who always seems to be just sitting there.)

“The most important thing about this business is the pragmatic approach,” he said. “How do people do on the floor together -- whether or not they are friends, that’s not important. Two of my teammates, Jerry Lucas and Dave DeBusschere, had no connection, but they had a professional relationship on the court....

“I believed my influence on encouraging team play was enough. It wasn’t. There was more going on than that. In my lack of recognition of that, I failed. Even though it worked in the past for others, and even worked for the three years we won championships, it didn’t work and I hold myself responsible.”

The Lakers held him responsible too, for a year, before bringing him back for $30 million. I wanted to know what a paycheck looks like when you’re making $10 million a year but found him to be a little defensive.

“I started out in coaching making $18,000 a year and having to quit because I wasn’t making enough to put my kids through college and didn’t have health insurance,” he said. “I made $75,000 as an assistant coach, $150,000 as a head coach and suddenly I’m making 100 times that, but it’s not about the money.”

My turn to laugh.

“It’s overwhelming,” he said. “But there is a value to what I’m doing. I wouldn’t come back for $18,000 a year. The stress of the life has a value to it. It’s cost me some health issues, and some ability to have a normal life.”

Obviously he can afford a ring for Jeanie, and I brought that up, of course, because Jeanie and I have been working on it for some time. Maybe for Christmas?

“No. Our relationship has moved beyond that,” and I don’t think he was talking about me. “After basketball is over there is something else.”

She has to wait three years? “Depending upon if we’re successful,” he said. “If I get beat over the head by this team [it might be sooner].”

Some folks have noted Jackson has changed the second time around as Laker coach, appearing more relaxed, until you bring up the ring.

“I am more patient,” he said. “That’s one of the things I learned. I wanted to be more patient and more giving.”

Give me a break, I suggested, knowing only the guy who abruptly ends interviews and walks away after giving little. In fact I was surprised we had talked so long without a hint of aloofness or condescension. I wondered if he was OK.

If this was the way he always conducted himself, I could like him. I told him I’m not sure folks here, while respectful of nine titles, ever embraced him. And I blamed him for that.

“I accept that,” he said. “The way it ended was distasteful in the mouths of people.

“I’m a very private person; very monkish actually.... I understand how a community can embrace you, but I’m not looking for that. I came back to coaching to deliver a message. It’s remarkable what can happen to a community that embraces a team and style of playing basketball unselfishly.”

I said, “You’ve got nine titles, so you’ve got the podium, and you’re the son of a minister, why not preach the message in maybe a warm, and friendlier way? Maybe even let folks know you’re human.”

“My dad was always about retreating,” Jackson said. “He had a little model on his desk, this little wooden thing with a figure kind of floating there with a balloon head and little tiny dancing shoes. The motto on it was: ‘The bigger your head gets the easier it is to replace you.’ I remember going into his office and asking him about it. He’d say, ‘Let the message be the bearer of the news, not the person delivering the message.’ The message has got to be the truth.”

I’m still not sure what the message is, so I read him a quote from his ex-wife, June Jackson, from a recent L.A. Weekly article: “My answer to why he’s so frequently misunderstood is that he’s unclear

“Good for her,” Jackson said with a big smile.

“I never saw it as brilliance,” I told him, “but I have witnessed the obscurity and the guy who can be aloof and standoffish. Jeanie says it’s because you’re shy, but it sure feels like you’re looking down on people.”

“My motto, that I have over my desk, tells a lot about me,” he said, and the guy sure is into mottos. “It’s a direct quote from Buddhist writings,” he said, and despite my rolling eyes, he continued. “It goes, ‘Unceasing change turns the wheel of life, so that reality is shown in all of its various forms. Peaceful dwelling allows all sentient beings ... great joy ... “

I stopped him because I had no idea what “sentient” meant.

“Consciousness,” he said, and it wouldn’t be the last big word he used that required a definition later. “Think about that; unceasing change turns the wheel of life. I’m not the same person I was two years ago, you’re not the same person -- you’re a grandfather.”

Jackson then reached inside his flannel shirt and pulled out a necklace. He had four medals hanging from it. “Christian, for the cross,” he said, “the Jewish star, the Buddhist wheel,” and an Indian head “for Native American.”

“These are just the four things that have had a lot of input in my life,” he said, still amazingly patient given the sarcastic tenor of the inquisition. “I’m a person that believes there is a basic truth, a basic truth that comes through various messages.”

“You just seem to be covering all your bases,” I suggested, and while it might be just my perspective necklace talking here, tell me now that “Phil the Weirdo” isn’t the perfect nickname.

T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Simers, go to

latimes.com/simers.