| | SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Phil Jackson wanted the Los Angeles
Lakers to acquire Scottie Pippen, but team owner Jerry Buss said
Pippen's $67 million contract would have hamstrung the team for too
many years.
Pippen was traded by Houston to Portland last week for six
reserves. He has four years remaining on a five-year deal he signed
with Chicago before he was traded to the Rockets last season.
 | Pippen
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"Phil definitely felt that Scottie would be a big improvement
for us in the next year or two," Buss told a gathering of
reporters Wednesday at training camp.
"But he is aware that if you take somebody like Scottie with a
long-term contract under the current rules, it would have been
impossible to ever improve this team."
Buss said the four years remaining on Pippen's contract
precluded pursuing him. He denied reports that the Lakers offered
Houston a deal, only to be rejected by the Rockets.
"Scottie is just a great player and certainly for a year or two
it would've been the right thing to do," he said. "We would've
probably done it had he not had a four-year contract."
Buss also knew acquiring Pippen would've drained the Lakers'
budget for free agents.
"When you take him, you're basically saying this is our
personnel for the next four years," he said. "Right now we have a
lot more leeway than that and I think we should maintain that
leeway."
Even without Pippen, Buss believes the combination of Jackson
and the current roster gives the Lakers an excellent chance to win
their first NBA championship since 1988.
"This is the best team we've had in the last 4-5 years," he
said.
Buss lured Jackson out of retirement in June with a five-year,
$30 million deal that makes him one of the NBA's highest-paid
coaches.
The owner never spent that kind of money on a coach before, but
he believes coaches need long-term, rich contracts to deal with
today's big-money NBA players.
"It's very difficult for somebody making one-tenth of what the
player he's talking to does and get that kind of respect," Buss
said. "It's probably true that the money associated with it does
command a certain amount of respect."
Under former coach Del Harris and his replacement Kurt Rambis,
there was speculation the players didn't respect or listen to
either man.
Buss believes Jackson is the answer.
"He commands a lot of respect. I like his confidence," he
said.
Buss could be looking at dipping into his wallet again to keep
swingman Glen Rice around. The Lakers exercised a $7 million option
on Rice for this season, but he wants a long-term deal starting at
the league maximum of $14 million.
With Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant holding big-money
contracts, giving Rice the kind of deal he wants could strain the
team's budget.
"It's tough to pay three superstars because once you do that,
you're really freezing any improvements you could make past that
point and there are nine other soldiers on that team," Buss said.
He said Lakers executive vice president Jerry West wants to
watch Rice this season and see how he fits into Jackson's triangle
offense. Rice practiced only lightly Wednesday because of
tendinitis in his left knee.
"If he deserves that money, we would have to pay him," Buss
said.
Any lingering talk of bringing back Dennis Rodman after his
ill-fated stint with the Lakers last season appears unrealistic.
"I don't think anybody's really seriously considered bringing
back Dennis," said Buss, who especially wanted Rodman in the first
place last season. | |
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