When It Comes to Jackson, Answers Hard to Come By

I read Phil Jackson’s comments in Tuesday’s newspaper, and when he said, “I think that people who allow Karmic things to happen . . . usually are better served by it,” I wondered what Johnny Carson had to do with the Lakers’ situation.

Of course, I remember when Johnny played “Karmic the Magnificent”--a know-it-all much like Jackson, and Ed McMahon would hand him the answers and Karmic would hold the envelope to his temple and guess the question.

For example, McMahon might say something like “Thirteen Days,” and Johnny would reply, “How long has it been since Kobe passed to Shaq?”

Now I know Jackson burns incense, walks around chanting and beating a drum, but I have my doubts if the fellas are going to buy his Karmic routine. . . .

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I’M SORRY--SOMEONE just pointed out that while Jackson said “karmic” to our reporter--whatever the heck that is--Johnny played Carnac the Magnificent, which is a relief, because I just can’t see Jackson wearing that funny hat and his pride not being bruised a little when Jeanie Buss starts giggling.

But now I seriously wonder what Jackson was talking about, and more than that, I wonder if anybody in a Laker uniform knows who or what karmic is. Maybe that explains the Lakers’ problems this season--they’re listening to the Zen Master and can’t understand a word the guy’s saying.

And every time Jackson uses a word like karmic, J.R. Rider takes the time to look it up, and then he gets in trouble for missing the team plane.

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I’M FRESH OFF a Ray Lewis Super Bowl, so I stumbled a little bit when Jackson said, “I don’t want to put my index finger, the gun, to the head of either one of those young men.”

I presume he was talking about Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, and with Jackson earning $6 million a year to coach the Lakers, frankly I would hope he would come up with something more sophisticated than pointing his index finger at the guys and telling them he might shoot if they don’t get along.

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AS YOU KNOW, I can speak from experience to the problems that Jackson and his team are having. My seventh and eighth grade girls’ basketball team at St. Francis in Yorba Linda has been losing with regularity, and it’s like I told the kids, “It’s certainly not the coach’s fault.”

But here’s the difference between Jackson and myself. I never would say, “We’re not youthful. We’re not quick. We’re not athletic,” as Jackson did in the paper. Or add, “When the two athletic players you have on the team--one has not been athletic this year and the other has been athletic but only on one end of the court--it changes a lot about how a team is going to play.”

Just like Shaq, I got little kids on my team who would go home and pout if I talked that way. I would point out that Lauren, our center, is not one of them. She’s also in shape. Shoots free throws better too. Hit one two weeks ago.

Now take those earlier remarks by Jackson, and couple them with this: “The other three guys who are on the floor with [Kobe and Shaq] are not making up a greater sum of those two individual parts.”

Well, I was never good in math, but I think when you add it up, Jackson is trying to say his team stinks.

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AT THE SAME time I believe Jackson also is letting it be known: What do you expect me to do about it?

Now if you read Jackson’s body language he’s not here to coach, but to sit on the bench and look as if he’s the only one in the building who knows what’s going on. The soul patch, the new suits and glasses are just Hollywood touches to make him more regal as he sits in silent judgment.

If I tried that with the St. Francis girls--first, I’d have to shave the soul patch--and I’d have parents calling me at home, threatening not to bring treats to the next game. And without the treats, the kids don’t play.

By the way, I might suggest treats as one solution to pep up the depressed Lakers, and I can tell you this from my seventh and eighth-grade experience--passing out books is a real downer.

I’d also suggest he start coaching, but that’s probably anti-karmic.

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DURING THE TELECAST of Tuesday night’s game with the Cavaliers, Chick Hearn said he had been in a hotel elevator with some of the Lakers when a hotel guest said, “Basketball players?” Hearn said that Rick Fox replied, “Sometimes.”

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NFL COMMISSIONER PAUL Tagliabue was scheduled to stop in L.A. late Monday, then continue to Hawaii on Tuesday for the Pro Bowl, which would have had him awakening to read a report in The Times that the Super Bowl had an all-time low TV rating of 32.9 here--compared to a national mark of 40.3.

Tagliabue might be spending a lot more time in California in the coming months. In addition to the Raiders versus the NFL in a lawsuit that is set to go to trial in L.A. beginning March 7 and the annual owners’ meetings in Palm Desert at the end of March, the NFL has serious stadium issues in San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego.

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I BELIEVE THERE never has been a better Disneyland commercial than the one featuring Trent Dilfer. The commercial has Dilfer completing two passes, which makes it the perfect advertisement for Fantasyland.

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AFTER BEING NAMED Super Bowl MVP, Lewis told reporters he was going to “hug my kids to death.” When the NFL/censors passed out transcripts of what Lewis had said after the game to reporters, the words “to death” had been expunged.

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TODAY’S LAST WORD comes in an e-mail from Kevin:

“Baltimore did not have football for more than a decade, and never in those years were the Baltimore sportswriters reduced to the absolute lowest form of writing: gratuitous attacks with no rhyme or reason.”

Art Modell is an all-time weasel.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at his e-mail address: t.j.simers@latimes.com