From Roland Lazenby of HoopsHype.com:
Jackson grew up a son of the Northern Plains, in one Montana community after another, always facing “the rapture,” the belief that the world was soon coming to its glorious end.
“Every Sunday since I was born, the apocalypse has been coming next year,” Jackson once told Knicks teammate Bill Bradley in trying to explain his parents’ view of life. Jackson’s young world would be shaped by a growing awareness of his mother’s intense devotion and her focus on the moment of Christ’s return, what she called “the rapture of the saints,” and he would spend his childhood years anticipating that rapture.
Those childhood experiences brought him moments of terror, he once revealed.
And so he learned the power of endings. Anyone who doubts that only has to recall how he used the “end game” to motivate and focus a crazily fractured and distracted Chicago Bulls team to win the 1998 NBA championship. Jackson employed every mind game possible to squeeze a sixth title out of that club and even gave it a tagline as he was doing it, “The Last Dance.”
Hey, he’s a guy who’s made millions off a book titled “The Last Season.”
So Jackson’s recent noise about retiring after the 2010 campaign has to be taken with a grain of context. And that context is this: With Phillip Douglas Jackson you never know where the mind games end and the stark reality begins. That’s part of his motivational success in a business where you’re trying to shape, guide and control headstrong young millionaires in short pants.
Could Jackson call it quits after the 2010 season? I wouldn’t put it past him. I think it will come down to whether Jackson believes the Lakers can continue to contend for NBA championships. I’ve read two of Jackson’s books: “Sacred Hoops” and “The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul.” One of the things I gleaned from those books was that Jackson is a relentless competitor. Don’t let his courtside demeanor fool you. He wants to win as much as anyone.
With Andrew Bynum beginning to hit his stride and Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant content in the purple and gold, the Lakers are in position to contend for the next 4-5 seasons. Jackson has expressed a disdain for the NBA’s rigorous travel schedule, but by all accounts, his health has improved after having both hips replaced. After nine NBA championships and two tumultuous endings in previous stints with the Bulls and Lakers, the challenge for PJ is to end his career on a high note. No regrets. No bad blood. I don’t think Jackson will call it quits until he’s reached the mountain top once more. Maybe the Lakers accomplish that feat in 2010. Maybe not. But I don’t see Jackson walking away without a parade.
