Before Kobe Bryant told reporters last week he wanted Phil Jackson back as his coach, there was a different name he told Los Angeles Lakers management: Mike D’Antoni.
“I spoke with Jimmy (Buss) before everything went down and we talked about some of the coaching candidates and stuff and to be honest, I said D’Antoni was my first choice because I didn’t even know Phil was going to be an option,” Bryant told reporters Tuesday.
Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni talks about taking the job in L.A. and his coaching philosophies with this squad and his reputation as an offensive coach.
“Then Jimmy was the one that brought up Phil’s name,” Bryant continued. “I said, ‘I didn’t even know that was a consideration.’
They said, ‘Well, it is and we want to know how you feel about it.’ I said, ‘I love it,’ and that was it. So they knew my two guys that I liked and if one didn’t work out, obviously with Phil, they knew that they had my approval to pull the trigger on the other one.”
Bryant admitted he experienced “a little bit” of disappointment that Jackson did not get the job, but he hasn’t spent much effort trying to investigate what happened behind closed doors.
“It’s kind of a waste of time for me at this point,” Bryant said. “What good is that going to do for me? It does nothing for me.”
Bryant said after the Lakers’ 84-82 loss to the Spurs on Tuesday night that he hadn’t spoken to Jackson since the Lakers chose to hire D’Antoni instead of the 11-time championship-winning coach. However, he said Jackson and his assistant coaches have been underappreciated for their success.
“It seems like all our assistant coaches when they left here, to even mention the word ‘Triangle’ was like taboo,” Bryant said. “I don’t understand it. I really don’t know the answer to that question. It’s very strange, very bizarre. You would think that organizations and other coaches should try to learn from Phil. That’s what you should try to do, right? If you have a coach that’s won more than anybody in our profession, you would think you’d want to study them and analyze them, but they haven’t done it.”
When asked what aspects of Jackson’s coaching he has carried with him since Jackson retired in 2011, Bryant said: “Everything. I’m basically the ‘Baby Zen Master.’”
Bryant hopes D’Antoni’s addition can do something for him — get the Lakers back on track to win a championship. Bryant credited D’Antoni with installing the offense as an assistant coach with USA Basketball that led Bryant and the U.S. to gold medals in 2008 and 2012.