The Los Angeles Lakers owe the Chicago Bulls a debt of gratitude.
No, not just because former general manager Jerry Krause's poor relationship with Phil Jackson may well have driven the Zen Master out of the Windy City after the Bulls' last championship season—though the result of that split is certainly worth pondering on the occasion of Jackson's 68th birthday.
And not just because Michael Jordan laid out a blueprint for brilliance that Kobe Bryant later followed about as closely as anyone has or likely ever will.
Rather, in the smaller, more immediate picture, it's another blueprint put forth by the Bulls—that of how not to handle a superstar's recovery in the media—that LA appears to be following with the Black Mamba, wittingly or otherwise.
The Lakers have already gone out of their way to avoid a recovery-related debacle like the one into which the Bulls fell with Derrick Rose last season. As Lakers spokesman John Black recently told Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times, "We're going to avoid giving a target return date until he's doing full weight-bear ...
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Article written by Josh Martin
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