How Will Lakers Fill Their Coaching Hole?

When the white smoke finally emerges from the Staples Center chimney, Phil Jackson will be the Lakers’ new coach. Five reasons why:

1. Phil is neither a martyr nor a grudge-holder. Forget the bad blood; he can work with Kobe.

2. A year older, wiser and -- having gone through a miserable season -- humbler, Kobe can work with Phil.

3. It’s an opportunity to come to the Lakers not as one piece in the puzzle, but as their savior.

4. His girlfriend lives in L.A.

5. Jerry Buss will pay him close to $10 million.

David Macaray

Rowland Heights

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So apparently the only way for the Lakers to dig out of this Phil Jackson-induced hole is to rehire Phil Jackson? The Lakers’ overt desperation for Jeanie Buss’ boyfriend perplexes even the most casual of Laker fans.

Didn’t Jackson lose [in the playoffs] his last two years coaching with Kobe and Shaq? Didn’t Jackson write a book slamming the organization? Call me crazy, but if I’m Dr. Buss and Kobe Bryant, it would take a lot more than an incense candle and a subscription to the book-of-the-month club to make me trust a weasel like Phil Jackson again.

David Flanders

Compton

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With the Lakers not reaching the playoffs, it has been very pleasant going to the sports bars in the L.A. area without having to deal with the obnoxious and unruly behavior of Laker fans, most of whom are bandwagoners anyway.

Unfortunately, a lot of these same “fans� are only going to resurface at the sports bars in the L.A. area in September, wearing their Raider jerseys, when the NFL season gets underway.

Michael Lipofsky

Simi Valley

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I fear that just as John Wooden retired at UCLA and the Bruins have found him irreplaceable with a revolving door of coaches, the Lakers without GM Jerry West may face the same problem. As a longtime NBA and Laker fan, I am still waiting to be impressed by Mitch Kupchak. Making no trade at this year’s trade deadline, the Shaq trade debacle, drafting Vujacic and Cook, acquiring Rush, and extending the contract of Devean George ... as I say, I’m waiting to be impressed.

Harry Bluebond

Valley Village

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Jerry Buss should recruit the best high school basketball coach in Indiana, who probably makes around $50,000 a year. Give him $500,000 a year and have him run this team the way he did in Indiana. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts he’d do better than the Zen master for $10 million a year.

Richard De Santis

Tarzana