Jackson awakened by Lakers, told he didn’t get job

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Phil Jackson released a statement Monday that said he was awakened at midnight Sunday by a phone call from Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak and told that Mike D’Antoni had been hired as coach.

Jackson said he met with Kupchak and Lakers executive Jim Buss for 90 minutes on Saturday, during which no contract issues were discussed. His statement implies that his next contact with the team was Kupchak’s call.

From Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times: “Saturday morning, Jim Buss called to ask if he could come and visit. I didn’t solicit or ask for the opportunity but I welcomed both him and Mitch Kupchak into my home to discuss the possibility of my return to the Lakers as head coach. We talked for over an hour and a half. No contractual terms were discussed and we concluded with a handshake and an understanding that I would have until Monday to come back to them with my decision. I did convey to them that I did have the confidence that I could do the job.

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James, Faried named Players of the Week

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Forwards LeBron James of the Miami Heat and Kenneth Faried of the Denver Nuggets were named NBA Players of the Week on Monday.

It was the all-time record 38th Player of the Week award for James, who won for the Eastern Conference. He led the Heat to a 3-1 mark, posting double-doubles in points and rebounds in all four games. He averaged 21.0 points, 11.0 boards and 6.0 assists while shooting 57 percent from the field.

It was the first Player of the Week award for Faried, who won for the West. He powered the Nuggets to a 4-0 week after an 0-3 start by averaging 16.8 points, 12.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks while shooting 56 percent from the field. Faried had three double-doubles.

Other candidates included New York’s Carmelo Anthony, Memphis’ Zach Randolph, Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka, Philadelphia’s Jrue Holiday and Charlotte’s Kemba Walker.

 

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Bernucca: In case you haven’t noticed, Celtics have issues, too

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While all of the focus has been on the soap opera swirl around the Los Angeles Lakers, the NBA’s other similarly storied franchise has its own set of issues.

The Boston Celtics also raised expectations by adding some key pieces in the offseason, then promptly stumbled out of the gate. But there were no death stares, insurrections, coach beheadings or panic moves.

But there are some problems in Beantown. Let’s allow team leader Kevin Garnett to explain.

“You can’t speed chemistry up,” Garnett said. “I think the more practice, the more you get familiar with each other. There’s no hit the fast forward button here. You’ve got Comcast; some shows you can’t fast forward through. You’ve just got to let it go through and watch the silly ass commercials and be pissed, right? This is what this is.

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What if Thomas Robinson was named Metta World Peace?

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When the NBA is doling out suspensions for flagrant fouls and fights, Commissioner David Stern has said that a player’s previous track record factors into determining the penalty.

For example, during a nationally televised regular-season game last season, Los Angeles Lakers forward Metta World Peace received a seven-game suspension for elbowing James Harden in the head, flooring  the Oklahoma City Thunder guard and leaving him with a concussion.

World Peace was clearly caught up in the emotion of the moment – which doesn’t excuse his actions in any way. He had just scored and the crowd at Staples Center was going wild. He thumped his chest as began to return downcourt and initially appeared willing to just shove his way past Harden, who was pretty much an innocent bystander to that point.

Then World Peace decided that all of his physical posturing wasn’t enough and drilled Harden in the ear with a hard elbow. He wasn’t looking at Harden when he hit him, leaving open the absurd possibility offered in his defense that his actions were accidental. What it really looked like was his initial contact with Harden allowed him to line up his victim and clobber him without facing him.

The NBA found an easy way to remove any doubt that World Peace’s actions were clearly intentional and had no place in the game. It simply considered the source.

This was a guy who smashed a $150,000 video camera after a loss in his hometown of New York. This was a guy who once wandered onto the Miami Heat’s bench to deliver verbal jabs, incurring the wrath of Pat Riley.

And of course, this was a guy who was the primary protagonist in the NBA’s darkest moment, running into the stands to assault a fan during a Pacers-Pistons game and triggering a frightening riot that forever will be known as “The Malice at the Palace.”

World Peace is a dirty player, and that’s OK. The league is filled with dirty players. John Stockton, one of the all-time great point guards and a generally beloved player, was a dirty player.

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The Bernucca List – Edition 30

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Really? Thirty of these already?

We started these about a year ago for two reasons. One was both editor-in-chief Chris Sheridan and yours truly both were big fans of The Spy List, which ran in Spy, a wonderfully snarky monthly magazine in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (It also did its fair share of good investigative reporting, by the way.)

The other reason we began running these was NBA commissioner David Stern and union chief Billy Hunter were remarkably unsympathetic to our basic needs. When you commit to building a better basketball site, it has a better chance for success if basketball is actually being played.

So what sort of started out as filler content during the interminable lockout now has become one of the longest continuous features on Sheridan Hoops. We’re kind of proud of that, even though coming up with fresh material occasionally presents a challenge.

More on that later. First, let’s settle up last week’s business. Edition 29 of The Bernucca List had been posted for less than 10 minutes before reader Dualie provided the correct answer, which was “Active coaches who have played for the teams they are coaching.” Nice job.

This week’s list is after the jump.

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