Phil Returning To Lakers For a 3-PEAT

Updated: July 1, 2010, 7:40 PM ET

Jackson will return to Lakers

By Dave McMenamin
ESPNLosAngeles.com

LOS ANGELES -- The idea of his fourth three-peat must have been too much for Phil Jackson to pass up.

The Los Angeles Lakers coach told the team on Thursday that he will return for his 11th season on the bench in L.A. and an even 20th to cap his NBA coaching career.


Jackson


"Count me in," Jackson said in a statement. "After a couple weeks of deliberation, it is time to get back to the challenge of putting together a team that can defend its title in the 2010-11 season. It'll be the last stand for me, and I hope a grand one."

Jackson had told the Lakers that he needed to address health concerns before committing to another season. A knee has been bothering him for some time.

Jackson received a clean bill of health early this week after going through a series of examinations since the season ended that checked out both of his surgically-replaced hips, his heart that had a stent placed in it during the 2003 playoffs, kidney stones that had bothered him this season as well as his right knee that caused him to start regularly wearing a knee brace for support.

Jackson had been weighing whether to have knee-replacement surgery this summer, but he's likely to defer that until next summer, at the earliest.

"Everything [with his health] is good," Jackson's agent Todd Musburger said in a telephone interview Thursday. "That was of course a big part of the process that he wanted to go through before making a decision as to whether or not he should return to coaching or retire."

Jackson, who turns 65 in September, is a member of the Hall of Fame who has led the Lakers and Chicago Bulls to 11 championships, the most of any coach. The Lakers have won the last two after winning three in a row from 2000-02. The Michael Jordan Bulls won titles from 1991-93 and 1996-98 with Jackson at the helm.

"We're extremely pleased that Phil has decided to return," Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said. "With this most recent championship, we've now won five titles in the 10 years he's been our head coach and have been to the Finals in seven of those 10 years, which is amazing. He's not only the best coach for this team, but quite simply the best coach in the history of the NBA."

Jackson's contract terms for next season were not immediately available, but one source close to the situation told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that Jackson knew and accepted them in a meeting with Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss before he returned to his offseason home in Montana, making health the only variable that could have kept him from returning.

Multiple reports have stated that Jackson will be expected to take a pay cut this season, but Jackson admitted that, "It's still a ridiculous salary, whatever it is," when asked about the projected figure during the Western Conference finals in May.

The terms of a new deal have not been formally agreed upon, according to Lakers sources, but both sides were comfortable that a one-year deal would be reached quickly. Though the structure of the deal isn't set, it is expected to be a one-year deal. At the end of the deal, if Jackson changed his mind and wanted to return, the Lakers would again be open to that possibility.

"We expect that to go smoothly at the right time for the Lakers office and for us," Musburger said. "We'll get at it."

Jackson, who said last week he was "leaning towards retiring" just a day after Sports Illustrated quoted his daughter Chelsea as saying, "I think this is it. I think he's done now," in a cover story about the Lakers epic Finals victory against the Boston Celtics, has become reinvigorated in recent days when removed from the daily pressure of his occupation.

"He sounds extremely pleased with what he's decided and he's already looking forward to next season," Musburger said.

"Truthfully, Phil does enjoy what he does. We all know how stressful it must be, we can only empathize with that. The stress is high, the pressure is great. When you manage the Yankees or coach the Lakers or you're the soccer coach for England, there are expectations and winning is not good enough, you have to win the championship.

"Phil obviously has some real gifts for what he does. He loves it. The game is of course a huge part of his life. I don't expect any change in his intensity, or his focus, or his desire. He loves being a part of the action. He's had tremendous success. He really enjoys his fellow coaches. They're very important to him.

And he obviously enjoys the club that he has and he looks forward to saddling up again."

Various members of the Lakers organization shared in Jackson's joy. "I'm happy, I'm glad," said Lakers special assistant coach Craig Hodges in a phone interview. "It's a chance to make some history."

Free agent Shannon Brown, in the midst of contract negotiations with the Lakers himself, said, "I'm excited and happy for him!!!" in a text message to ESPNLosAngeles.com.
Ron Artest posted a message to his Twitter feed,
@RONARTESTCOM, that said, "Thank You Phil Love you man!!!!! Let's get it LA."

Jackson's girlfriend and Lakers executive Jeanie Buss, a Twitter regular, tweeted earlier in the week that she remained "optimistic" about her boyfriend's chances of returning to coach and revealed the tipping point of when she started to think he was coming back in a tweet Thursday.

"I knew it was getting close when Phil asked me if Doc was coming back (he doesn't watch too much TV in MT)," Buss wrote, referring to Celtics coach Doc Rivers who made it official he was returning to Boston on Wednesday.

While Jackson is calling 2010-11 his "last stand," he's been known to bend the definition of the word "last" in the past. In 1997-98, he bonded the Bulls with the theme of looking at the season as the "Last Dance." In October of 2004, Jackson released a book called "The Last Season" documenting a turbulent '03-04 campaign with the Lakers that ended with a Finals loss to the Pistons, leading to a dismantling of the team and the second "retirement" of Jackson's coaching career.

We could be doing this all over again next summer when Jackson contemplates whether or not to return for a shot at lucky championship No. 13.

Dave McMenamin covers the Lakers for ESPNLosAngeles.com.