Brian Shaw Quietly Waits for Opportunity

BOSTON -- Brian Shaw could take the direct route, walking straight to Dr. Jerry Buss' office to ask the man with the plan himself rather than reading the tea leaves like everybody else.

But Laker Land doesn't work that way, so the Lakers assistant will keep working while wondering if the promotion he so badly wants will ever come.

Lakers head coach. Phil Jackson's successor. Get in line.

Shaw is hardly the lone former Laker to covet this job. Minnesota coach Kurt Rambis pined over the post for years while a Lakers assistant until finally moving on. Byron Scott improved teams in New Jersey and New Orleans/Oklahoma City while never completely closing that Lakers door, negotiating contractual exit strategies at both stops so he could head back to Staples Center if the Lakers owner ever called for his comeback. And then there's Shaw, who played the final four of his 14 seasons with the Lakers before retiring in 2002, became a scout a year later and an assistant in 2004.

"I think being a head coach of the Lakers is probably one of -- if not the -- best job in sports," Shaw said at Lakers practice in Los Angeles last week before Boston tied the NBA Finals 1-1 on Sunday. "Anybody who's in coaching would love to have an opportunity to be the head coach of this team.



Share "(But) it's something that I can't choose. I have to be chosen. All I can do is prepare myself as well as I can, and hope that if I'm ever put in that position the people here who are making those decisions (think) highly enough about me that I can do the job and they feel comfortable with making that decision."

It's easily the most desirable job in the NBA at the moment, with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol having inked extensions this season that have them signed through 2014 and point guard/free-agent-to-be Derek Fisher the only core player not signed through at least 2012. Yet the future of the one who continues to pull all the right strings remains in doubt.

Jackson remains without a contract beyond this season, with the coach who is earning a league-high $12 million this season having acknowledged that he'll be asked to take a pay cut and reports that he won't return if that's the case.

Lakers executive vice president and Jackson's partner, Jeanie Buss, has publicly made it known that coaching elsewhere is an option, and the hard-bargain approach on both sides could certainly lead to Jackson's departure. Meanwhile, it appears Shaw's options at the moment might be limited to the Lakers.

The only vacancy to which his name has been attached recently (Chicago) went to his Finals counterpart, Boston lead assistant Tom Thibodeau, while Shaw insists he prefers it to be this way for the time being.

"I'm glad my name isn't in the mix right now because I want to concentrate on our ultimate goal, which is winning a championship," Shaw said. "And then in a couple weeks, however the chips fall they're going to fall."

And considering how many times he has seen coaches fired from jobs for which he interviewed, he's willing to keep waiting.

"Reggie Theus (in Sacramento), Terry Porter (in Phoenix), Vinny Del Negro (Chicago) ... got jobs that I interviewed for (and) are no longer there anymore," Shaw said. "Within a year or two years, they were done, so I'm just trying to learn as much as I can, soak it up from all the experience I have around me. And when the time comes, be ready for it."

Yet this former Laker's time -- nor any others -- may never come with his beloved team. Considering Jackson reportedly campaigned on Shaw's behalf for the Bulls job, that's one particular tea leaf that hardly points to him being deemed the heir apparent. Of course if Jackson is learning toward resolving the financial factors and returning, he may simply have been trying to take Shaw's career to the next level while while his own head coaching days continue in his current seat.

But among the former Lakers who remain in the running for the eventual opening, Scott is believed to have the closer ties to the two most powerful men who would remain in the organization -- Buss and Kobe Bryant. What's more, the retention of the triangle offense employed by Jackson and known so well by Shaw may not play the pivotal part so many assume, as Buss surely remembers that the Lakers won four of their 16 championships and lost three times in the Finals under Pat Riley's up-tempo system.

Somehow, Jackson's uncertain future and the rampant speculation it has caused hasn't appeared to distract the Lakers. Shaw said the coaching staff hardly broaches the subject, with one notable exception coming for the sake of comedy.

"We kind of rib him a little bit when we see stuff come across the ticker, when we're watching (game) film or play back of ESPN and it'll say, 'Laker executive vice president Jeanie Buss says she won't stand in (Jackson's) way if he wants to go to another team,'" Shaw said. "We'll joke around and say, 'What would you do if she did try to stand in your way?' But he won't react one way or the other. We just do that in fun."

Lakers small forward Lamar Odom said the players and their coach don't discuss the situation.

"He hasn't brought it up to us, so that being said we kind of go on thinking things are going to be the same, that nothing is going to be different," Odom said. "We have a tradition and a way we're going to play that's established. He established that, as far as our system is concerned. We have the core players who are going to be here in place..."

As for the coach, the one with the 10 rings still remains. And Shaw, just like the former Lakers before him, will have to wait.

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