Lakers GM Kupchak says team wanted D’Antoni, didn’t think Jackson would want job

Phil Jackson was under the impression that the Lakers job was his if he wanted it — and it wasn’t just his impression. Mike D’Antoni thought it was Jackson’s job, everyone around the Lakers thought it was Jackson’s job, and Lakers fans thought it was Jackson’s job.

The Lakers front office wanted Mike D’Antoni. And Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak admitted Tuesday he didn’t think Jackson would want the job (in part because Jackson told Kupchak a few months before he didn’t think he’d ever return to coaching). They were caught off guard by the momentum of Jackson returning picked up.

Kupchak has taken the incoming fire and spoke with reporters about the move. Here are tweets from Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register about what he said.

It boiled down to how much more use Mike D’Antoni could get out of Nash and Howard despite “enormous pressure” to hire Phil, Kupchak said.

— KEVIN DING (@KevinDing) November 13, 2012

Kupchak confirmed Lakers initially did not expect Phil to be interested. Mitch also didn’t mean to give Phil impression job was his to lose.

— KEVIN DING (@KevinDing) November 13, 2012

Kupchak did say that if Phil had said that first day he wanted the job, Lakers would’ve huddled about giving it right to him.

— KEVIN DING (@KevinDing) November 13, 2012

I asked Kupchak about whether Phil had a vision for using Nash in the triangle. Kupchak said: “Obviously I wasn’t convinced.”

— KEVIN DING (@KevinDing) November 13, 2012

That is a good soldier providing cover when under fire.

We’ve made the argument that D’Antoni is the better long-term hire (if he can get them to defend). But the problem with how this went down is the game changed for D’Antoni — he went from replacing Mike Brown (who D’Antoni will be better than) to replacing Phil Jackson in the minds of Lakers fans. Not even the real Jackson, but worse yet the legend of him, The Lakers could win 62 games for D’Antoni and he will hear how Phil’s team would have won 70 games. And swept the Celtics. And shut out the Bobcats 101-0. And how Kobe Bryant would have scored every time he walked over the half-court line.

But no pressure Mike. Good luck.