Common Bond

The Lakers’ Phil Jackson, with Thursday’s playoff victory over Minnesota, is within one victory of taking his team to the NBA Finals, where a chance to win a record-setting 10th NBA title would await.

His former New York Knick roommate, Walt Frazier, watched the victory from midcourt seats and was still amazed that Jackson wound up in the coaching profession in the first place.

“He just didn’t like to conform to rules too much,” said Frazier, an NBA Hall of Famer who attended Game 4 as part of the league’s Legends of the Game Tour.

“Phil was kind of a maverick and free spirit. Basketball was not his whole life. He was an intelligent guy who liked to do a lot of other things. That’s why I never envisioned him being a coach.”

Frazier, the color analyst for Knicks’ television broadcasts since 1989, said that when he watches Jackson coach, he sees a lot of their New York Knick coach, Red Holzman, in him.

“Red was a psychiatrist and Phil was the whipping boy,” Frazier said. “Red was always telling him not to dribble and not to do this and not to do that.

“Red knew when to kick you in the butt. For example, he would always yell at me because he knew that I was impervious to his yelling, but he didn’t yell at [Bill] Bradley because he would play worse. Red knew how to manipulate each guy and that’s what Phil learned.... Different personalities and different ways to motivate people.”

Although he hasn’t been in much contact with his former roommate recently, Frazier has watched the Lakers from a distance and said he is impressed with how Jackson has handled all the problems the team has had this season.

“This has been a season of adversity and how they have been able to overcome that reminds me of our ’73 team,” said Frazier, who helped lead the Knicks to the NBA title that season after they finished 11 games behind Boston during the regular season.

“We had a similar season because of injuries. But we knew that once we got healthy, it would be a different season for us. I’m sure that’s what Phil told the Lakers this season.”

Frazier first encountered Jackson when both players were playing in a small college tournament in the late 1960s. Jackson played at North Dakota, while Frazier attended Southern Illinois.

They were each drafted by the Knicks in 1967, Frazier in the first round and Jackson in the second.

“We came to the team at the same time,” Frazier said. “We were roommates and early on, neither one of us were playing. We would go to L.A., Chicago, Detroit, and Phil would get me up to go sightseeing. We would go to museums and other famous landmarks.

“Phil was into that stuff, while I wasn’t. I was the type of guy who would sleep 23 hours a day. Phil would get me up and we would go out all day. The bus would be scheduled to leave at 5 for a game, and we would get back at 4:30.”

Jackson also liked to hit the New York City night life and one of his favorite pastimes was listening to jazz.

“I was amazed that a guy from North Dakota would even know about jazz,” Frazier said. “I mean, Phil was a very cool guy. He had a wide range of musicians that he liked, but jazz wasn’t for me. I liked rock ‘n’ roll while he would hang out on the East Side at this laid-back type of club. That’s what he liked to do.”

But as both players began to play more, Frazier emerged as a future star while Jackson quickly gained a reputation of being a hard-working player willing to do the dirty work to help the Knicks win.

Holzman played the rookies together as a defensive tandem. Frazier was the ball-hawk who intimidated opponents with his stealing ability, while Jackson frustrated opponents with his long arms and tenacity. Both players ended up on the NBA’s All-Rookie first team.

The similarities between those Knicks and these Lakers included star-studded rosters. That 1973 championship Knick team had six Hall of Famers on the roster -- each of the starters in guards Frazier and Earl Monroe, forwards Dave DeBusschere and Bill Bradley, center Willis Reed and backup Jerry Lucas.

The Lakers, of course, have four players -- Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone and Gary Payton -- seemingly destined for the Hall of Fame once their careers end.

On the old Knicks, Jackson was in a supporting role. Now he’s on the verge of history. And his relationship with Frazier has evolved as well.

“He was my biggest supporter,” Frazier said about Jackson.

“It’s reciprocal. Now I sit back and watch Phil with admiration. I rarely talk to him, but he knows that I’m there with my support just like he was there for me when I was playing and now it is the same way.”

With a common bond of NBA championships.

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Big Apple Duo

After being selected in the first and second rounds, respectively, in the 1967 NBA draft, Walt Frazier and Phil Jackson were teammates for 10 seasons with the New York Knicks. Their averages:

*--* FRAZIER JACKSON Season PPG APG PPG RPG 1967-68 9.0 4.1 6.2 4.5 1968-69 17.5 7.9 7.1 5.2 1969-70 20.9 8.2 Injured -- DNP 1970-71 21.7 6.7 4.7 3.4 1971-72 23.2 5.8 7.2 4.1 1972-73 21.1 5.9 8.1 4.3 1973-74 20.5 6.9 11.1 5.8 1974-75 21.5 6.1 10.8 7.7 1975-76 19.1 5.9 6.0 4.3 1976-77 17.4 5.3 3.4 3.0

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