Failure doesn’t go to his head

If you’re wondering what happened to the Phil Jackson who won all those championships, he’s residing in Jackson’s psyche, providing reassurance that things will be OK.

By any measure, this has been the worst of Jackson’s 16 seasons as an NBA head coach. The fewest victories (42) and the two longest losing streaks (six and seven games) of his career. He even came within a couple of games of missing the playoffs for the first time. Last season was the only time he exited the playoffs in the first round. The same is expected this year, at the hands of the same Phoenix Suns.

When a once-promising season was derailed by injuries and constant defensive breakdowns, Jackson didn’t seem to have any solution other than saying, “Shoot it, Kobe.” If we’re going to bring heat on Mike Dunleavy for the Clippers’ regression, Jackson deserves his share for the Lakers’ backslide as well. At $10 million a year, and with Kobe Bryant in his prime, all that gets is two more victories than the Clippers?

Watching Jackson’s passivity as the cars went off the tracks just made Lakers fans even more frustrated. But this is the same style he employed while winning championships 1-9, so why change now? Even if Jackson has been more prone to quoting the Three 6 Mafia lately, his approach has been more like a Rudyard Kipling line: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same

Throwing fits would not have solved anything. It wouldn’t heal Lamar Odom’s shoulder or the ankles of Luke Walton and Kwame Brown. Jackson looked within himself, found a little comfort in his track record and tried to lead the way he knows how: the less-is-more approach.

“I took myself out of the equation and looked at the players as far as how demoralizing it was for them,” Jackson said. He was “trying to give this team my support as much as possible.

“It tries your patience. It tries your resolve. Those were the things that, fortunately, at this age I’ve got a lot to back up because of the success I’ve had and the age I’m at right now where frustration doesn’t affect me as much as a younger coach.”

Most of the players, he came to realize, don’t have the same perspective -- or championship memories.

“Believe me, there was a point [when] my frustration with some of the players was to the position that you wonder, [is] this player going to be useful to us?” Jackson said. “Are we going to have to reassess what we have as an organization based on what happened under dire situations? I think it’s sometimes unfair to players if you measure them at that point, because they don’t have that same kind of resource that you might have. Their frustration comes out easier and their disappointment is exhibited.”

I asked if he was referring to Smush Parker, who has chafed at fourth-quarter sit-downs and now will probably come off the bench during the playoffs.

“Among other things, yeah,” Jackson said. “Among other things.”

Jackson didn’t unleash the same harsh quotes on Parker through the media that he has for other players (including Brown). That was one sign of Jackson’s mellow approach this season.

It probably wouldn’t be a good idea for Jackson -- 61 and four years removed from an angioplasty -- to elevate his blood pressure too high. Still, some people would rather he throw a tirade. Or at least a clipboard.

“There’s that in our society, too, where we want to see that,” Jackson said. “More than anything else, [the players] really needed a support system, where they felt like, ‘We can get through this. We can make it.’ I kept saying it’s about getting to the playoffs and having our opportunity there. We have to give up on, say, a 50-win season. It’s not about that. It’s about the playoffs. That’s what it’s all about.”

This is when Jackson always has been at his best, with pre-series strategies and in-series adjustments. But now his options appear limited. The Lakers will go only as far as Bryant can take them.

It’s the ultimate concession for Jackson. He constantly sought to make Bryant subjugate his own game for the sake of the team, as Jackson had successfully asked Michael Jordan to do in the past. But with no other options presenting themselves lately, Jackson has been resigned to letting Bryant take the burden upon himself. After averaging 20 shots a game in the first four months of the season, Bryant took 28 shots a game in March and April.

“It certainly wasn’t the way I wanted to start the season,” Jackson said. “It certainly wasn’t the way we started with successes. We know there’s a limitation to what you can get accomplished when you do that [and] it’s all in one man’s hands.

“That wasn’t our intent. At a point where it came time for us to get it down, we’re back at .500 and we’re struggling to get upwards, that was a point in which we had to start doing some things that were drastic measures.”

It’s not Jackson’s preferred approach. He’s not in his usual place as championship favorite. The only thing the same is his approach, and if you really expected him to change that, you hadn’t been watching him long enough.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande go to latimes.com/adande.