Two old, weary-eyed basketball coaches met in the arena hallway. Between them, Phil Jackson of the Los Angeles Lakers and George Karl of the Nuggets have more than 1,700 NBA victories but not a single clue as how to fix their messed-up teams.
Extending a hand to greet the owner of nine league championships, Karl said, “Mr. Jackson, how are you?”
Please, don’t ask.
Anybody who naively believes that coaches still maintain any real power or exert meaningful influence in a sport ruled by millionaires wearing signature sneakers obviously has not seen Denver or L.A. stink up the joint lately.
Neither Karl nor Jackson really needs a job on the bench.
So you have to wonder: How much more of this can either man take?
“It’s demeaning. It’s humiliating,” Jackson said Thursday night, after being fined $50,000 for blasting the recent punishment of star Kobe Bryant’s dirty play as a “witch hunt.”
Hey, didn’t you use to be the Zen Master? It’s bad enough when commissioner David Stern smacks down Dr. Phil for opening his pie hole. But when journeyman guard Smush Parker starts giving Jackson back talk, maybe it’s time for a legendary coach to head for the ranch and retire.
As Karl watches the Nuggets bumble and stumble toward the playoffs, he wears a look as pained as the mug of a driver stuck in traffic on the way to a tax audit.
If he has not had it up to here with the uneven play of forward Carmelo Anthony, Karl is threatening to bench all five of his starters or banging his forehead against a microphone in a postgame press conference.
In a Pepsi Center arena where fan allegiance was so evenly divided between the home team and the visitors that 9-year-old spectators Ben Weinstock and Michael Kalat sat side by side in Section 130, one kid wearing an Anthony jersey and his pal sporting the old No. 8 uniform number of Bryant, the Nuggets won 113-86.
“When he yells, ‘Go Melo!’ I get mad at him,” said Kalat, giggling.
But what they have endured this long winter is definitely not funny to Karl or Jackson.
“It’s not a laughing matter,” Jackson said of the 50 grand the NBA will remove from his wallet, which only goes to prove that freedom of speech ain’t always cheap.
Denver or L.A. is going to finish sixth in the Western Conference, not because the Lakers or Nuggets deserve it, but because somebody must, so there can be a postseason patsy for a team with legitimate championship aspirations. Either way, Karl and Jackson seem doomed to spend the playoffs serving as the TV cutaway shot of frustration personified.
Coaching is not a fraternity so much as shared misery. Maybe that explains why Karl said Bryant could have received harsher punishment for use of sharp elbows, considering that Anthony received a 15-game suspension for throwing a punch that was not nearly as dangerous.
Sure, Karl genuinely feels Jackson’s pain. But there’s also a dark corner in every coach’s heart that revels in the sleepless nights of a peer.
Jackson is 61 years old, and his joints creak with such frightening loudness when he unfolds from the Lakers’ bench it could scare the juice from the Tin Man’s oil can.
At age 55, Karl might have gained the perspective of a cancer survivor, but he still grows ill at the thought of players cheating the game by displaying stupidity or selfishness on the court.
Do these guys, graying and balding as gracefully as any two coaches can, really need the money or the adrenaline rush that comes with the aggravation of yelling at players who often don’t seem to care as much about winning as Karl and Jackson do?
Life’s too short.
It’s none of my business, of course.
But I say Jackson and Karl should get out before the bouncing of a basketball drives them both insane.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
