"Phil Jackson is not about hypothetical situations, so for him to go back and wonder what would have happened had he decided immediately Saturday that he wanted to coach the Lakers again is not his style. Yet it is painful for Lakers fans who longed for Jackson's return as coach to know now that the odds were that Jackson would indeed be back in place had he told Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak and executive vice president Jim Buss right away in his initial interview with them Saturday that he definitely wanted the job. Kupchak spoke to a small group of reporters Tuesday afternoon about how it all went down with the meeting with Jackson and the eventual hiring of Mike D'Antoni. "When we decided to make the change (from Mike Brown) and we talked about a couple of possibilities, Phil - although he was mentioned - was not lumped in as one of the possibilities that we thought would be a reality," Kupchak said. "He had retired on his own a year and a half ago, and he told me two months ago that he never wanted to coach again, he was done coaching, but he wanted to stay involved in basketball in some capacity. "And when we made the change, we discussed in advance, 'Listen, guys, although we don't think he wants to be a part of it and we're not looking to go in that direction, there's going to be a firestorm of support (for Jackson). And of course, on Friday, that started. And by Friday night, I was talking with ownership about 'We've got something on our hands right now that we've got to talk about and consider and look into. So the decision was made Saturday morning to meet with Phil and to see exactly his take on it, what his condition was, his mental approach, his physical approach, and that's what we did. "I would say up until that point, it remained percentage-wise more of a possibility that we would ask him if he said yes to coach, although it never got there Saturday morning. The groundswell of support ... there was a lot of pressure - there was a lot of pressure - to seriously consider bringing Phil back or asking him to consider to come back."" Read more: http://www.ocregister.com/sports/kupchak-377670-jackson-lakers.html
