Lakers fans ✤weren’t the only ones upset Phil Jac🎃kson didn’t take over their team last year.
The coaching great’s fiancée, Jeanie Buss — who shares ownership of the Lakers with her brother Jim — was just as upset the team instead hired former Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni, calling it a “betrayal.”
“I felt that I got played. Why did they have to do that?” that was excerpted by the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. “Why did Jim pull Phil back into the mix if he wasn’t sincere about it?
“Phil wasn’t looking for the job, and then he wasted 36 hours of his life preparing for it when they were never in a million years going to hire him anyway. How do you do that to your sister? How do you do that to Phil Jackson?”
D’Antoni was under siege throughout the season as the Lakers struggled to incorporate Dwight Howard and eked into the playoffs with a 45-37 record, only to be swept by the Spurs in the opening round.
Jim Buss recently told ESPN.com the D’Antoni hired reflected the wishes of their father, Jerry Buss, the longtime Lakers owner who passed away in February after an 18-month battle with cancer. Jeannie Buss said the notion her father would endorse the move because he wanted to go back to “Showtime” era of the 1980’s was ill conceived.
“But there was only one Showtime, never to be replicated,” Jeanie said. “My dad knew that.”