At least that’s what it appears in this story, which indicates a candidate who was heretofore unknown:

Jackson also said he did not anticipate coaching at the collegiate level, although a booster from the University of Oregon contacted him in hopes of Jackson taking over that program.

That’s PHIL Jackson, in an ESPN story.

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I’ve made this known before, but I have to reiterate — don’t count me among those all geeked up for another Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals.

The tradition of this doesn’t move me much. I’ve seen them play enough over the years. Been there, done that — even in the days when a 2-2-1-1-1 travel schedule in a seven-game series between Boston and Los Angeles meant enough cross-country flights to jet lag me for days.

I find these the two most unlikeable franchises in the league — mostly for their arrogance, I guess. There is nothing very lovable about either team, if you ask me. And I’m hard-pressed, too, to pick a winner in the series or to even say which team I’d like to see win.

Usually, I’m more accustomed to subtly pulling against one of these teams. Now, I’ve got to watch one of them win. I suppose, if you put a gun to my head — and I wish you wouldn’t do that, by the way — I’d have to say I’d prefer the NBA championship stays in the West. But really, it wouldn’t break my heart to watch Phil Jackson lose a series.

However, it looks to me as if the Lakers may have too much for Boston this time around. I like the Los Angeles front line over Boston’s. And I like Kobe Bryant over anybody in basketball. The only thing that worries me is the physical nature of Boston’s defense. In the West half of this bracket, the Lakers haven’t seen a mugging like they’re going to get from the Celts.

I’m not sure the Phoenix Suns did much to prepare Los Angeles for the Celtics.

That’s Boston’s big chance — to physically beat up the Lakers and make it an old-fashioned, NBA wrestling match. And even without the physicality, the Celtic defense is much better than anything the Lakers have seen to date in the postseason.

I can’t recall ever saying this before, but I wouldn’t mind seeing it end quickly. Man, it seems to me that this has been one long NBA season. I wouldn’t mind seeing it finish up. Let’s get to the draft so we can start the whole thing all over again, right?

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Man, to go anywhere I think he’d want a firm commitment that LeBron James will be wherever he goes. And I’m not sure how the timing would go on something like that.

It’s no secret Jerry Buss wants to cut his salary in Los Angeles and Jim Buss, Jerry’s kid, is a bit of a pain in the ass in the front office. But come on, Jeannie Buss is still his girlfriend and Kobe Bryant’s got a few more years of dominant play. I just can’t imagine Phil bailing this soon. (By the way, if he does, it’s great news for the Western Conference. There is no tougher act to follow than Phil Jackson).

I do know, the minute Jackson’s convinced he can’t win championships there, he’ll walk. That’s for sure. He doesn’t do rebuilding. He isn’t patient. And folks, he’s not in a position to have to be. For me, I really don’t care what it costs to get him, if you bring him in, you’re pretty much assured you’re going to win.

And win big. He’s worth it. The guy is probably the only coach in the league with enough heft to handle James. In fact, I think he’d consider it a challenge. But in the back of my mind, there is something else — would James want to play for him? Does he really want to surrender to his coach? Maybe. Maybe not.

I’m still not convinced of exactly what James is looking for. If you ask me, things went off the tracks in Cleveland during the playoffs because of LeBron, not because of Coach Mike Brown. James doesn’t want to take responsibility for that but the fact is, if LeBron had been LeBron against the Celtics, Cleveland would likely still be playing.

Believe me, this promises to be the most interesting off-season for the NBA in years. Between all the free agents, all the cap space, all the coaching vacancies and the impending possibility of a work stoppage, this is going to be one riveting summer.

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I mean, seriously, the Most Valuable Player in the league and the guy just checks out on you in such an important game? I just don’t get it. Hurt or not, don’t you have to see more effort than that? More resolve than that?

That was weak, man.

And meanwhile, the basketball world is alive with rumors. Now LeBron is going to Chicago — where he’s going to be coached by John Calipari or Phil Jackson? How in the world can this guy leave if he loses this series? Now THAT would look good.

And by the way, for me — I know Shaq played well last night. But I don’t think, ultimately, he works with LeBron James. While he’s posting up, he’s a big roadblock right in the middle of the lane, keeping LeBron out of there. James’ game is going to the basket — he’s still not a reliable and consistent outside shooter — and Shaq keeps him away from that game. Plus, you can’t run well with Shaq out there dragging  you down. Heck, Phoenix found that out.

All in all, a fascinating series, considering how awful most of the games have been individually.

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Man, the first quarter last night was a thing of beauty for the Utah Jazz — and basketball purists. The Jazz sliced and diced the Portland Trail Blazers, spread them out, isolated them and cut them up, laying them bare at both ends of the court in front of about 20,000 people.

Seriously, the new buzz words for the past several seasons in the NBA are cliches by now… all I’ve heard lately from teams is how they need to find players who can “create their own shot.” Yeah, well… I’m old-school. I admit that. But I remember when basketball was a beautiful team game –when it was systems that created shots. And that’s what I saw from the Jazz last night.

Jerry Sloan has never been coach of the year? What a joke. He’s one of the last holdouts who plays the game the right way, who has a system at both ends of the court and sticks to it — and makes sure his players do, too.

Did you see the Jazz just handing the ball to a player last night, asking him to go one-on-one to get a shot? And it’s not as if they couldn’t do that, either. Deron Williams could do it any time. But he works within a proven system that provides great shots for everyone — and Williams has no trouble getting his within that system.

Rick Adelman does this. So do Phil Jackson and Larry Brown. They understand that moving the ball, moving bodies and demanding that players be disciplined within a team framework is critical to winning basketball. For all you young people who think basketball is nothing but isolations and clear outs, who think you win by just handing the ball to your best guy and staying out of his way — well, get your hands on a video of last night’s game.

A lot of fans think that just because John Stockton and Karl Malone were in Utah so long running pick-and-rolls, that what Utah does is pretty predictable. But no way. Even in those days, the Jazz would come at that play in so many different ways, from so many different angles. You’d have to stop all sorts of back cuts, off-the-ball screens and player movement before they got to that play.

And you wonder why Malone and Stockton stuck around for almost two decades, playing in nearly every single game that whole time? Well, they were never asked to carry the same load that a Brandon Roy carries on a nightly basis — the task of taking the ball in the middle of the floor and constantly trying to beat multiple defenders on the way to the basket.

I get so frustrated with people who think that’s how you play winning basketball.

Look, last season the Houston Rockets ate the Blazers alive in the playoffs — and Portland came away saying it needed one more player, in addition to Brandon Roy, who could get his own shot. Meanwhile, the Blazers had been carved up by a team with NO players who could get their own shot but instead played a team game, stayed within a structured group of sets, ran plays, worked to get each other open.

Is nobody paying attention to this? Your system is supposed to get you shots, too — but it doesn’t happen here very much.

And at the other end of the court, well, it’s the same thing. For most of the first half, the Trail Blazers couldn’t get an open look. They had trouble getting to the basket and getting open threes. The Jazz got out to Portland’s guards while still being able to seal off the inside as well as anyone the Blazers have played.

Rudy Fernandez, Andre Miller, Martell Webster and Steve Blake combined to go 8 for 39 from the field. Jerryd Bayless was 5 for 12, but made that many only because he was relentless in his pursuit of cheap buckets late in the game when the issue was decided.

In the second half, things became a little more equal because Carlos Boozer left in the middle of the third quarter with a calf strain, right about the time Williams went to the bench with his fourth foul and Utah was pretty bad at the foul line. Besides, the trailing team, especially at home, always gets that run in the second half.

(By the way, it was a typical LaMarcus Aldridge game — great statistics at the end of the night but if you were watching the game, you wouldn’t like what you saw. For most of the night, Boozer just annihilated him. If he hadn’t gotten hurt, he’d have thrown Aldridge off the Broadway Bridge by the fourth quarter.)

But don’t let that obscure what happened in this game. The Jazz gave the Trail Blazers a very big lesson on how the game is supposed to be played. And it’s real important that everyone understand that.

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Roland Lazenby is a smart guy who can give you a real good picture of the inner workings of the Lakers. And he wrote this fascinating piece on Hoops Hype about the power struggle going on inside the Buss family for control of the Lakers. The story details how, in the end, a family feud may cause Jackson to leave the Lakers.

It’s a fun read.

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Speaking of uniform numbers, that reminded me I meant to post this yesterday: Why the No. 37? That’s how many weeks Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album was No. 1 on the charts. Hmm, why not No. 5? That’s the number of fingers in Michael Jackson’s famous glove.

Things have changed in the NBA. It used to be that the players were influenced more by another MJ. Oh well.

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t think Ron-Ron lives in some sort of parallel universe? I’m still believing Kobe Bryant is going to have trouble with this guy before it’s over. I’m even thinking this might be the player capable of running Phil Jackson out of his job and back to Montana.

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A lot of people are pointing at Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson and saying yes, Phil can handle Ron Artest. After all, Phil made it work in Chicago with Dennis Rodman. Artest joining the Lakers can do nothing but make the Lakers better.

I would not be so quick to jump to that conclusion.

Rodman, while probably crazier even than Artest, was not the problem on the court that Artest will be. Rodman did not want to shoot. In fact, when you passed him the ball he reacted as if you’d just pulled the pin on a hand grenade and lobbed it to him. What Dennis wanted to do is rebound and he did that just about as well as anyone ever has.

Artest not only wants to shoot, he’s the most toxic kind of shooter — the type who thinks he’s good at it and isn’t. I think it’s going to make for some long nights for Kobe Bryant, trying to somehow get it through Artest’s noggin that those long jump shots he favors aren’t going to be what’s best for the Lakers.

And that team does play in Los Angeles, you know. Ron Artest anywhere near Hollywood just seems like such a potential trainwreck. I’m not sure if Artest looks for trouble or if trouble just has a way of finding him but it’s going to be fun to watch this play out.

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Several things to say about this NBA Finals before moving on to other things:

– Phil Jackson will be appearing this week on the Home Shopping Network, wearing a championship ring on each finger, hawking yellow hats with the roman numeral “X” on them. And for $49.95 he will autograph them, with an “X” of course.

– OK, just kidding the guy a little bit. Love him or hate him, and I figure most people choose one or the other, the guy is in a class by himself. Nobody else coaches the way he does and I feel sometimes that nobody gets the results he does. His mere presence — which allows him to give his players more freedom on the floor than probably any other good team around — is incredible.

– And I give Phil a lot of credit for this championship. When I look at those Lakers, I definitely don’t see one of the better NBA championship teams in history. Man, not even close. He did a great job of melding a group together that wasn’t supremely talented. Just one Hall of Fame player in this group. Often, title teams have had at least two.

– Size still matters. For all the talk about Orlando’s outside shooting, the Magic weren’t long enough — at either end of the court. The Laker defense in particular was just too big for the Magic in the basket area.

– So many regrets on the Magic side. I’m telling you, the impact in Game 2 if Courtney Lee could have converted that lob pass inside the final second — I’m still not convinced the Lakers would have recovered from it. It changed everything about the series. As did Dwight Howard’s free-throw misses in Game 4. Way too many missed opportunities for Orlando.

– Stan Van Gundy — America’s newest coaching hero.

– Kobe Bryant handled himself very well in the wake of winning another championship. Said all the right things. Good for him. Now let’s put away the Grrrrr Face for a while, OK?

– Dr. Jerry Buss didn’t show so his two boys were on the floor accepting the championship trophy. Huge mistake. Horrible acceptance speech. There is a serious joke here about the kid being nervous about his father at home dating his girlfriend while he’s out accepting the hardware but I am not going to make it because not everyone knows that the good doctor tends to date very young women.

– All in all, such a flat ending of a Finals. I really expected the Magic to bring a little more to Game 5 than that. I guess their hearts, and spirit finally broke.

– OOPS … forgot to add this. — The Lakers had the most trouble in these playoffs with Houston and Denver. Really, it’s not at all hard to make the case that the second-best team in the playoffs was the Rockets because they gave the champs the toughest fight. The power is still in the Western Conference, folks.

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All those championships. All that work becoming the Zen Master. All that time building that mysterious image.

All of it — years in the making – undone in just a few seconds by putting on that yellow baseball cap with an “X” on the front.

Man. What did you just do to yourself?

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