Phil Jackson is miffed with the Lakers after meeting with general manager Mitch Kupchak and executive vice president Jim Buss on Saturday and leaving with an understanding “that (he) would have until Monday (today) to come back to them with (his) decision” according to ESPN.com.
The Lakers surprised everyone including Jackson when they hired Mike D’Antoni instead on Sunday night.
Jackson found out late that night when Kupchak woke him with a phone call informing him of the decision.
“The decision is of course theirs to make,” Jackson said in a statement. “I am gratified by the groundswell of support from the Laker Fans who endorsed my return and it is the principal reason why I considered the possibility.”
Rumours swirled that Jackson had made outrageous demands such as not attending all of the road games and an exuberant salary but Jackson’s agent denied those claims.
“There were no demands, outrageous or otherwise,” Todd Musburger told ESPN.com. “To say that he wanted control or that he wanted a zillion dollars or that he wanted equity, those were not topics discussed in the meeting between Kupchak, Buss and Phil. If the Lakers didn’t spread those things, the fact they didn’t take an affirmative stance to correct the record is very troublesome.”
Musberger was actually on a plane to Los Angeles to continue negotiations as the Lakers were signing D’Antoni.
Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register offered a very, valid reason as to why the Lakers decided to go with D’Antoni over Jackson.
“They just didn’t want him back,” he wrote on Monday.
KOBE LENDS A HAND: Bryant wasn’t available to comment on the D’Antoni hiring on Monday after practice because he was giving a teammate a ride.
Thanks Kobe! :) RT @lakersreporter: Reason Kobe didn’t talk today-he took Steve Blake in his helicopter to Orange County for an ultra sound. — kristen blake (@kristenblake2) November 12, 2012
Thanks Kobe! :) RT @lakersreporter: Reason Kobe didn’t talk today-he took Steve Blake in his helicopter to Orange County for an ultra sound.
— kristen blake (@kristenblake2) November 12, 2012
Steve Blake’s wife, Kristen, appears to be happy that he took Blake for a ride in his chopper as he suffered a strained abdominal muscle.
And Smush Parker said that Bryant was a bad teammate?
SPEAKING OF KOBE AND D’ANTONI: D’Antoni’s last stop was in New York where he reportedly got run out of the Big Apple after managing to get under the skin of Knicks star Carmelo Anthony.
Adrian Wojnarowski had this interesting tidbit on the Anthony-D’Antoni relationship:
“When everything had become too hard with the New York Knicks, D’Antoni walked into the office one morning and surrendered. Carmelo Anthony had stopped listening to him, stopped running his plays, and ownership never supported the coach. When Anthony grumbled to Bryant about D’Antoni’s defensive acumen on a trip to Los Angeles before the coach’s resignation in New York, one witness says Bryant shot back to Anthony – only half-kidding – that, seriously, when the hell have you ever played defense?”
KG: GREEN NEEDS TO GET MEAN: Celtics forward Jeff Green is, by all accounts, a nice guy. According to teammate Kevin Garnett, that needs to change — at least on the court.
“You know, Jeff’s a really, really nice guy, and some nights, you know, you’ve just got to be an (expletive). You’ve got to be … I can’t really say what I want to say, but he’s got to be that,” Garnett told the Boston Herald.
Green was not at all taken aback by his teammate’s comment.
“He just wants me to be aggressive and demand respect and attack the rim — that way of being an (expletive),” Green said before the Celtics beat the Bulls. “He’s somebody I look up to, so I take those words and I use them to help my game and move on to the next step.”
