Jackson’s Moves Have Been Right on the Money

What does $10 million look like?

Ask me. I know. I’ve seen it.

It was the middle of last week, the Lakers’ final game of the regular season.

I was sitting in the same Staples Center seat I occupied during last season’s final home game.

A year ago, the rafters were dark, the courtside seats were vacant, the stars had disappeared, the buzz was a drone.

This time, the joint was filled, Jack was sitting with Regis, confetti was flying, the buzz was a roar.

That’s what $10 million looks like.

This is what Phil Jackson is being paid.

“M-V-P, M-V-P.”

Those chants should be for him.

On a team with the fewest wins in his career, this is Jackson’s best coaching job ever.

On a team that should become the only first-round playoff loser in his career, this is his championship coaching achievement.

“I totally agree with that,” said Kobe Bryant, whose underdog Lakers open the playoffs in Phoenix today. “The knock on Phil has always been that he has won with great teams. Just look at our roster here. Nobody expected us to make any noise, and look what we’ve done.”

Bryant smiled. The guy who once couldn’t say anything nice about Jackson now couldn’t stop.

“Look at how we’re playing now, compared to how we played in December,” he said. “Look at our evolution. That’s all attributed to him.”

The work has been lost in Bryant’s fall-away three pointers, in Lamar Odom’s interior passing, in Kwame Brown’s ... hustle? Yeah, hustle.

The image has been smushed by Parker and bussed by Jeanie and forgotten by all those who were so certain he would fail.

Nobody chants his name. Nobody wants to give him credit.

For $10 million, he has forfeited all rights to be praised for anything other than a championship.

But of that $10 million, he has earned every penny.

Look at this roster. Think about last fall.

Jackson returned to a team whose best player was considered uncoachable, a player whom he had publicly ripped, a player who had never loved him back.

Six months later, he calls Bryant “remarkable” and Bryant acts as if they are partners.

“Phil and I, we tag team guys,” Bryant said. “He empowers me to talk to them, and he makes sure they understand what he wants.”

Jackson also returned to a team whose second-best player was lost in space, a guy who needed to change his position or personality or place of employment.

Six months later, having changed only an attitude that has turned him into a terrific team player, Odom said he was living a dream.

“To be able to play for Phil Jackson in the playoffs as a underdog? It’s what you dream of,” he said.

Finally, Jackson returned to a team whose center was not a Shaq, but a Slack, a guy who was such a malcontent that his former team suspended him in the middle of last year’s playoffs.

Six months later, Brown has matured such that he’s vital to the playoffs.

“The coach believes in me,” he said. “I can just feel it.”

You can never go home again?

Jackson has turned the briefly dysfunctional Lakers into a home again, his patience and persistence resulting in 11 more wins, thousands of more fans, and a brand-new take on a familiar spring feel.

How can you put a price on that?

“I can’t say this has been my best coaching job, I can’t tell you which one has been better, I don’t quantify it like that,” Jackson said last week. “But this has been my most rewarding.”

Sitting in the lobby of the Laker offices, he smiled like I’ve never seen him smile before. It didn’t seem cynical or forced, but real.

“This year has been more fun,” he said.

Wearing his flip-flops, faded khakis and wrinkled T-shirt, he seemed more at ease than ever before.

“Coming in without expectations, trying to unlock potential instead of just pushing and pulling ... I really feel like I’m building something,” he said. “It’s felt great.”

Building, instead of caretaking. Teaching instead of guiding. Forty-five wins instead of 67.

Who would have thought all this stretching and bending would make an old giant so good?

Jackson said that his arthritic body felt better than ever.

“In the past, I ached so badly there were times it was a question whether I could even take the floor,” he said. “I don’t feel that way now.”

He said his passion had never been stronger.

“Thanks to the advice of Jeanie Buss, I am even calling more timeouts,” he said with a grin, referring to the Laker president and his girlfriend.

It might seem that Jackson’s greatest coaching achievement occurred in 1993-94, the season he won 55 games with the Chicago Bulls the year after Michael Jordan suddenly retired.

But that team was filled with players owning NBA championship rings.

This team has two.

Phil Jackson might be going into the playoffs with the best player in basketball, but he’s also going there with a Smush, and a Sasha, and a Kwame, and a Mihm, and a 35-year-old guard, and an 18-year-old center, and a rookie coming off summer heart surgery.

There were 10 million reasons the Lakers couldn’t make the playoffs.

There were 10 million reasons they did.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.