Moment of Zen

Last night, on HBO's Real Sports, former Lakers coach Phil Jackson sat down with Andrea Kremer to discuss everything from the Lakers, to the Knicks and Heat, life after the NBA, and any possible chances he would some day come back to the NBA. In the interview, he made a number of interesting statements, to say the least.

On the Lakers: 

"Jim is a guy that saw Andrew as a kid and thought Bynum was going to be a great pick for our team. But in the process, I think he's wanted Andrew to have a bigger and bigger role, and I think he's hired his coach for Andrew to have a bigger and bigger role. And that kind of disjointed the symmetry of what the Lakers were really about this last year. Andrew is an All-Star center; he did a wonderful job. But what happened was it took Pau out of his game, and it took the team away from some of their game. So they changed the style dramatically." 

On Jim Buss taking control of the Lakers: 

"He wants to put his stamp on what he's going to do. And I think he's decided that he'll go in a different direction. He's got some ideas about how the game should progress, how talent should be picked up... He's a guy that believes a lot in statistics and in numbers and in stuff like that. I'm a guy that believes in what the product is and I see it, can touch and feel, watch (it) run up and down the court."

Those two statements, as a Laker fan, sum up how I feel about the Lakers at this moment. I feel that Pau was out of his game and out of his position because of the new emphasis on Andrew Bynum. Pau worked much better in the low post, but it seems to now be reserved for Bynum. I, personally, have not been a fan of Jim Buss' management style, and while Phil did not criticize Jim Buss, at least not openly, his statements about Jim did not ease my concerns about the team one bit. 

Phil also made a statement that caught my attention, particularly because of the influence he still holds in the NBA, despite being retired. He said, "I find myself watching hockey playoffs before basketball playoff games. Less commercials, more fun, much more action, yeah." He preceded that statement by saying, "Everything is done off the dribble. Everything is a screen-roll to a screen-roll to a screen-roll. So the innovation is very limited in what's going on." This speaks volumes about the state of the NBA today, when one of the NBA's most iconic figures, and to many people (including myself), the greatest coach in the history of the game says that. So, NBA, if you're listening, if Phil Jackson says your game lacks creativity, you need to work on it.