Ok, no one believes he's completely devoid of talent, but did he maybe get a boost from having three of the greatest players ever come under his wing? NBA coaches in this era seem to be praised mostly for their ability to not get in the way of their players—and he does seem to be the best at not being the way. But do his ten titles over two decades compare to the absolutely dominance of Red Auerbach and his Celtics. (He did have Bill Russell for Pete's sake.) Let's ask someone who would really know ... Red Auerbach's son!

"Not to take away from Phil, but it's a different record," said Randy Auerbach, who lives in Los Angeles. "You're talking about a record with one team in which he won the first one and then won in eight consecutive years. Phil did it with two different teams and it wasn't consistently. It's about quantity. If that's his case, good for him.

"But it has to be broken down. It's a different record. How do you compare eight in a row, nine in 10 years?"

Good point, Randy! Now, let's ask some people who aren't completely in the tank for their old man.

Mark Woods, The Guardian

This championship may be Jackson's finest hour. Pau Gasol is no Scottie Pippen or O'Neal. Even the late Auerbach could not dispute the role Jackson has had in reshaping the Lakers from the 34-win crew that stumbled through his gap year. Twelve months ago, the Boston Celtics demolished and demoralised their old rivals in the finals. Someone had to pick up the vanquished and dust them off. Two hip replacements mean that Jackson is no longer jumping up and down on the sidelines as he once did in Chicago. Yet quietly, in his own understated manner, he has done what he always did: prodding and cajoling when required, but otherwise letting his players utilise the talents within.

Charles Barkley

I don't know if he's the greatest coach of all time, but Phil Jackson is in the conversation. I mean, you win 10 championships — that's pretty impressive. But I don't think he's coming back. Phil's done. I just think he's had enough. He's definitely gone. That's just my opinion, though.

Brian McCormick, The Crossover Movement

For some reason, we expect our coaches to yell and scream. We want to see them coaching in order to believe that they have an impact on the team. When Phil Jackson sits calmly through a game and trusts his players to make the right play, somehow that diminishes his coaching ability or reputation. This public criticism permeates every level of basketball. New coaches watch the games and listen to a player pop-off about Jackson's non-coaching, and suddenly he adopts the opposite approach with his son's under-10 team, pacing the sidelines, yelling at players, calling plays every time down court, questioning officials, etc.

Larry Brown (no, not that one), Larry Brown Sports

But even if the 10 rings suggest something else, I'd still have a hard time saying that he's the greatest coach in the game when a guy like Gregg Popovich is around

Kevin Ding, Orange Country Register

He is a champion again, but he is an altogether different champion. "He has become a giver rather than just a guy who is a demanding leader. And that's been great for him and great to watch." It pushed Bryant forward even further in prioritizing his teammates' development.

(Sorry, that was written about Kobe Bryant, believe it or not.)

Harvey Araton, New York Times

True, Jackson inherited the ringless Michael Jordan in Chicago and later Shaquille O'Neal in Los Angeles. But as Jim Cleamons, a longtime Jackson assistant, said: "Every situation that Phil has coached in, the team hadn't won before he got there. That, too, is a fact."

I always believed that Jackson, with three titles at the time, certified his greatness that season [1993-94], when his Airness-less team might have gone to the finals had a referee, Hue Hollins, not made one of the worst bailout calls (for the Knicks' Hubert Davis, against Scottie Pippen) in the history of the sport.

T.J. Simers, LA Times

Phil obviously has a knack for working with headstrong, gifted athletes, and have you noticed the softening in Kobe's demeanor the last few games? It has been striking....

No question he's different now from where he was when this series started, history suggesting it's probably the Zen Master at work again — his calmness wearing off on others, and at the same time making it almost appear as if he's doing nothing. And no one does nothing better than Phil.

Jay Mariotti:

They're as different as Yoda and Danny DeVito, the Grateful Dead and Weird Al Yankovic, a complete.....

What? Oh, nevermind. Phil Jackson: He's a pretty good coach.

As noted yesterday, the Rockets only seem to get better by removing stars from their lineup. Aaron Brooks, whom I'm told is not the former quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, scored 34 points as Houston played its best game of the season without Tracy McGrady or Yao Ming. It was pretty embarrassing for the Lakers. I'm sorry—Phil Jackson doesn't get fucking embarrassed.

Anyway, Brooks says everyone on the team has one of these snazzy red jackets and he was told that wearing them was mandatory, so he decided to take it up a notch with the kick-ass bow tie. Brooks was later taken out back to have his kneecaps broken in order to keep the "lose a player, win a game" strategy rolling.

Aaron Brooks will shred your defense, clear your plates [Ball Don't Lie]
Phil Jackson believed the Rockets should get "****ing" credit [Outside The Boxscore]

Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson caused a mini-firestorm this week when in his attempt at post-game humor, inadvertently offended a handful of homosexuals. Jackson was quoted as saying the Lakers' loss to the San Antonio Spurs was called a "Brokeback Mountain" game because of all the "penetration" and "kickouts." The beat writers got a laugh out of it. Gays? Not so much.

Now, let me start by saying, I like the gays. I have one friend who's a full-blown gay, and plenty of friends I'm positive are repressed homos who I treat just like I would a real gay. For example, I wouldn't enter a communal shower with my buddy Carl without wearing an extra pair of underwear beneath my towel. That's why we call him "Princess Carl," "Cocklovin' Carl," "Captain Carl Rod-smoker," "Carl the Balloon Knot Inspector," among many other things. All in good fun, mind you. But this situation appears to be completely overblown. (No pun intended.)

The Zen-huffing coach made a great point about why the joke went over so poorly. He acknowledged that in his profession this type of humor is frowned upon, and he half-heartedly apologized for his verbal misstep. (He even apologized to horses, presumably both gay and straight ones.) Regardless, you got the sense that there was more eye-rolling from Jackson than sincerity. At the start of what appears to be a shitty season full of Kobe-induced headaches and unfulfilled expectations, Jackson is indicating that he doesn't have time to deal with the P.C. police on top of everything else. Given his outward impatience and indifference to this issue, it's clear that he's not going to rethink anything that comes out of his mouth for the rest of the year — this is only the beginning.

So, this week, I'm refreshing Towelroad every 10 minutes, spending $50 on a haircut, and placing odds on the next group of people Phil Jackson will offend this year.

Let's go blow some sacred cows, after this page-view increasing click-through.

Autistic Children: 2/1

"This is one of those games I like to call a 'J-Mac Game.' The other team could just throw any idiot on the floor and have them make a three-pointer. Granted, they couldn't count to three without smacking themselves in the face or standing alone in the corner licking the wall, but those are the breaks sometime. Honestly, who was playing point guard for them in the fourth quarter? Was that Jenny McCarthy's kid out there?"

Women: 5/1

"This is one of those games I like to call a "Roofie Game." We're out there on the floor seemingly in control then, before we know it, we wake up tied to the bed post with tape over our mouths getting pounded by five dudes. Seriously, if you took a swab of Derek Fisher after this debacle, you're going to find remnants of their whole team on him. I'm going to make him pee on one of those kazoo-shaped things just to make sure he's not pregnant."

Immigrants: 4/1

"This is one of those games I like to call the 'Wetback Special.' Any kind of defense we put out there, they seemed to bust right through it. Next time, I'll have to sign a couple of coyotes and put them out there so they eat 'em before they can get to the basket. And so many turnovers! The ball just seemed to be slipping through our hands all night as if it were covered in some sort of salty grease. Maybe next time I'll have Odom hold a bag of oranges at the top of the key just so he can distract them. "

New Yorkers: 3/1

"This is one of those games I like to refer to as a 'World Trade Center' game. You know, a lot of bodies falling all over the place hitting firefighters in the head. I'm surprised Luke Walton wasn't covered in ash by the third quarter. It was like the big men on the other team were a bunch of crazed Arabs holding box cutters to our throats in the paint. They just had their way with us. Next time we play these guys, I'll be sure to wear a little American flag pin on my lapel to commemorate this tragic loss."

"When you take it out of context, it wasn't funny," Jackson said. "It was a poor attempt at humor and I deserved to be reprimanded by the NBA. If I offended any horses, Texans, cowboys or gays, I apologize." Asked if he had left anyone out in his mea culpa, Jackson said, "Well, children."

This is what happens when coaches are forced to write their own comedy material. Damn writers' strike.

Elsewhere in controversial regret:

• Sorry I'm drawing more attention to the Dolphins' season. — Ricky Williams.

• Sorry that I'm eight different kinds of crazy. — OJ

• Sorry I hosted a kegger forthe entire girls basketball team and got everyone suspended. — Ardmore High assistant coach.

• Sorry we won't be carrying the NFL Network. Enjoy several showings of Cop and a Half . — Your cable company

• Sorry about my Cy Young vote. I'll also be voting for Ron Paul, by the way. — Mark Feinsand.

• Wade On Track. Nearly six weeks after suffering a dislocated shoulder, Miami's Dwyane Wade was back at practice, reported that he was pain free, and hopes to be back in the lineup before the beginning of the playoffs. Miami (39-34) has nine games remaining in the regular season. Wade and Shaquille O'Neal have missed a total of 66 games, and have played only 13 together.

• Old School. The Mavericks just signed someone who was born before the Kennedy assassination; how cool is that? Time to welcome once again 44-year-old center Kevin Willis, who signed a 10-day contract Monday, making him the oldest active player in the NBA. Willis has played 20 seasons with seven teams, most recently Atlanta for 29 games in 2004-05. He didn't play last season.

Mark Cuban, yesterday afternoon, taking time out from lamenting Bubble's flop, on his blog:

I own Phil Jackson. Not literally of course. That thrill belongs to the smartest businesswoman in professional sports, Jeannie Buss. Figuratively however, the coach formerly known as the Zen Master must now be considered my bucket boy.

Now. We always enjoyed Jackson's past feuds with people like Jeff Van Gundy and Pat Riley, but mainly because they all seemed to be from the same old-guard coaching frat. But a Cuban-Jackson feud is too delicious to digest; it's kind of has a Dennis the Menace and his neighbor Mr. Wilson quality to it, if Dennis were an overpumped Internet dweeb and Mr. Wilson had occasional acid flashbacks.

Jackson responded to Cuban last night by saying he was "easy to tweak," which is a phrase that amuses us on several levels. We just love that Phil Jackson could have his life affected by a flame war. It's a new coaching world these days, isn't it Phil?

I Own Phil Jackson [Blog Maverick]

"Once one of my four candidates gets to three wins in the Finals, one away from clinching the series, I expect my mind will be made up," said Jackson. "It doesn t matter if it s 3 games to 2, 3 games to 1, or 3 games to none I ll take over at any stage."

Jackson Narrows Choices [Sportspickle.com]

Harvey Araton of The New York Times must have woke up sometime last week and said, "What's a new angle on this Phil Jackson story? There has to be one. I know ... I'll interview a Buddhist. In Cleveland. They have to have one, right?" Apparently, they do, and Araton interviews him about Phil Jackson potentially coming to Cleveland. His name is Dean Williams, and even though he works for a "company that underwrites workers' compensation services" by day (our prediction: he's a janitor at an ambulance chaser), by night he's the priest and leader of the Jijuyu-ji Zen Group of Cleveland. He says Big Chief Triangle should come to Cleveland and lead LeBron James to multiple titles. He also says Cleveland is cool than people think. He also is a janitor at an ambulance chaser. Right now, Dean Williams is showing his boss this story; "See! I told you the church in my basement was real!"

Juicy Offerings For The Zen Palate (New York Times)