Phil Jackson to Coach The Bulls? NO!

There is a rumor, or report – depending upon your perspective, that the Bulls have sent out feelers to Phil Jackson’s people to see if Jackson is interested in coaching the Bulls next season. That is not happening. There are a few reasons he may not be coaching the Lakers next season, but if he is not on the bench in LA he will not be on the bench anywhere. Like Ali Fedotowsky, the new Bachelorette that debuted last night, Jackson and Ali are both in high demand, but their shelf life is very limited. Ali is not really famous and just like all of the past “stars” of the reality shows they should appreciate the attention now because they will be long forgotten in less than a year. Jackson is 64 years old with a tremendous amount of health issues regarding his knees and his back. He can barely pace the sidelines and work the officials during the games. He doesn’t have that many years left to coach.

Reason #1 to go to Chicago: First and foremost is……the money. (you thought I was going to mention that LeBron guy)

He’s making $12 million this season and the Lakers have notified him that he will need to take a significant pay cut to return to the LA bench next year.

Why that won’t drive him out of LA: Part of that pay cut may or may not be related to an agreement for Phil to not travel on all of the Lakers roadtrips and other methods to ease the physical burden on him. Yet that is not reported by the big-four-letter. The only thing reported is a cut in salary for the coach with 10 World Championships. That must be a slight and Phil should head for the exits. In reality, the Lakers may be giving him more respect than any other team would to allow him to step back slightly to maintain his health.

Reason #2 to go to Chicago: He remained on good terms with Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf

Why that won’t drive him out of LA: He is not dating Reinsdorf’s daughter. He is dating Dr. Jerry Buss’s daughter, Jeanie. That’s a mismatch in favor of LA. It just doesn’t seem very likely that he would up and leave his girlfriend’s father’s team . He has a comfortable life with a team and owner that respects him and allows him to do whatever he needs to do.

Reason #3 to go to Chicago: A Young and Talented Team

The lure of coaching a young and talented team with Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and potentially that LeBron James guy. If LeBron were to sign in Chicago the Bulls would have a core of young talent that could challenge for titles for the next 10 years. They would also have the potential cap space to swing a sign and trade with Toronto for Chris Bosh, giving up Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich and draft picks. It can be debated whether Rose and James would be a good fit together as both tend to dominate the ball and are primarily penetrators rather than outside shooters, yet you cannot debate whether that team would have the talent to win it all repeatedly.

Why that won’t drive him out of LA: The Lakers have more talent

Yes, the Bulls would be in line to contend for the next ten years with Jackson & James. However he is currently coaching a team that is two wins away from their third straight NBA Finals appearance. He is currently coaching the best player in the game – Kobe Bryant. Yes, Kobe is more on the downside of his career than the upside, but he remains the best closer in the game, the most clutch performer and fiercest competitor. None of that can be said for James or for Rose at this point. Jackson is 64 years old. Add to that his health concerns and it appears unlikely that he will be coaching more than 3 or 4 more years. Bryant will remain lethal for that long. Gasol will still be among the best big men in the game for that long. Andrew Bynum won’t be 25 in 3 years. Lamar Odom will still be on a sugar high (though the concern is that being married to a Kardashian could drive him to the looney bin). He has young assets like Jordan Farmar to replace Derek Fisher, and Shannon Brown to play the Ron Artest role. Why would he leave a sure thing for a chance to see if LeBron really has that ultracompetitive gear?

At the end of the day, Phil has everything he wants in Los Angeles with the Lakers. He has the best team that will remain a title contender the next few years. He has the girl, thanks to the owner. He has made more than enough money in his career to comfortably take a pay cut for less travel and wear and tear on his body. Phil Jackson will be the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers next season.

Quick Hits

Quick Hits on some of the stories in sports…..and a reminder to come back tomorrow for a full breakdown of the Super Bowl matchup and it will be Degenerate Friday with my pick for the Super Bowl.

-----------------------------

The NCAA is meeting and considering expanding the NCAA tournament to 96 teams. Worst idea since overpaying the cast of Jersey Shore for a second season. Listen, we all enjoyed watching these people sink to new levels of self respect and live up to every stereotype of the Jersey Shore. But what are they going to do in the second season? Get drunk, get in fights, and hook up with some of the ugliest people to ever grace our television. That’s already been done during the first season, so my guess is it will get old quickly. And are we really connected to the cast of the first season? The Situation brought us a great nickname, Ronnie is a monster you don’t pick a fight with, and J-Woww encourages wearing as little clothes as possible and those little clothes better have holes or be ripped. Yet there are a ton of people on the Jersey Shore just like them. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, college basketball……..

Expanding the tourney is an example of the people believing that because A was successful, let’s just do more of A. It doesn’t work that way. If the tournament is expanded, it will be completely watered-down and the opening round games will not have the compelling storylines and upsets that make the tournament what it is. It is among the most loved sporting events in the country – even your girlfriend who doesn’t follow sports fills out a bracket and watches the games. Do we really need the 9th or 10th place team in the Big East in the tournament? Or the 3rd place team in the MEAC? That additional round of games will be as successful as when they expanded the tournament to 65 from 64 a few years ago. NO ONE watches or cares about the “opening round” or “play-in” game. Expanding the tournament to 96 teams would create an entire round of play-in games that no one will watch.

And I’m not even going to get into the whole gambling aspect of expanding the tournament. The opening Thursday and Friday of the tournament in its current format are the greatest two gambling days in the world. Let’s not mess with it.

----------------------------------------------------

Yesterday was national signing day for college football players. Did you miss it? If I’m a Florida fan, I’m supposed to be excited for what yesterday means 3 years from now? That is assuming that Urban Meyer doesn’t keel over from not taking care of his health, less than half the players avoid getting arrested, another third don’t get injured, and finally that they actually live up to their hype. That’s quite of bit of uncertainty to worry about.

On top of that, the whole ranking of recruits and recruiting classes are self-fulfilling circles. A player is highly rated because he is being recruited by top schools like Florida, Alabama or Notre Dame. Then those schools get highly rated recruiting classes because they get the highly rated players (who were highly rated because of where they were recruited).

------------------------------------------------------

Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant both reached impressive milestones this week. Kobe became the third-leading scorer all-time for the Lakers franchise and Phil now has the most wins as coach in franchise history. Both feats are impressive given that the Lakers franchise is the most storied and dominating franchise in basketball.

Kobe is the best player since Michael Jordan, and although he may never become the Lakers all-time leading scorer – Kareem played 400 years – he may be their best player. He is more clutch than anyone since Jordan and he has been intelligent enough to evolve his game from high-flying rim-crashing to a deadly accurate jump shooter. He has 4 titles, including last year on a team very much like those Jordan won with – surrounded by solid but not spectacular players. Speaking of Jordan’s teammates – this shirt is amazing (via The Big Lead).

Phil has had the benefit of coaching both Jordan and Kobe which obviously helps drive him to be the winningest coach for both the Bulls & the Lakers. Yet Phil has also been able to manage a diverse group of players, including Dennis Rodman, Ron Artest and Shaq. Yes, he has the players, but he has made sure the talent works together to be successful.

-------------------------------------------

Miller Lite is holding an auction where you can bid on Barry Sanders coming to your house for a Super Bowl Party on Sunday. Seems kind of strange. Yet that just made me look up some highlights from his career. This will be the most entertaining 4 minutes of your day today, guaranteed. I started noting my favorite runs as I was watching it, and stopped after the 5th time I scratched out my writing because I thought “wow, that one was his best run” only to have it topped by the next one.