Potential Lakers head-coaching candidates should study up on the triangle offense.
Phil Jackson is “significantly” involved in the Lakers’ search for their next coach, ESPN reported Tuesday.
Jackson is close with Lakers owner/president Jeanie Buss, the two having been engaged until they called off the wedding in 2016. According to ESPN, Jackson advised Buss during the team’s previous coaching search, too, which brought Frank Vogel to the Lakers in 2019.
The Athletic reported in March that Jackson had “been in frequent contact with Buss about team matters all season long.”
Vogel helped LeBron James and Anthony Davis win the 2020 bubble title, but he was fired after a disastrous, 33-49 season that ended without a playoff appearance.
Jackson, a legend with 13 total championship rings, had a reputation as a thoughtful and understanding head coach who managed egos to win 11 championships coaching Michael Jordan’s Bulls and Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal’s Lakers.
But the Zen was tarnished when he joined the Knicks as team president in 2014, overseeing regimes of Derek Fisher, Kurt Rambis and Jeff Hornacek that included few victories and plenty of off-the-court (and on-the-court) embarrassments before he was fired in June 2017.
Rambis, a close confidant and friend of Jackson’s, is a senior basketball adviser for the Lakers.
The only known, reported candidate for the Lakers job is Darvin Ham, a Bucks assistant coach. The others speculated have included Quin Snyder, Mark Jackson and Juwan Howard.