JACKSON WALKS RIGHT BACK IN AS SUCCESS.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

It's got to be the sandals.

Thinking back, it's got to be something silly that made serious people doubt Phil Jackson could be happy, effective and relatively successful in his comeback season with the Lakers.

The man showed up for his re-introductory news conference last summer in a suit, bead necklace and sandals.

He didn't seem to have one foot in retirement, he seemed to have both. So it was natural to wonder.

Even for a $10 million salary, could Jackson care enough to coach a team that had fired him a year before, a team that seemed to want him mostly for the buzz he'd bring, a team with no shot at a championship, a team led by a player he'd insulted in print, a team of youngsters and scrubs and a guy named Smush?

Last fall, Jackson laced up a pair of dress shoes and went to work, and answered that size-16 question with the regular season that ended Wednesday, when some of the Lakers' kids led a 115-95 rout of the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets on Fan Appreciation Night at Staples Center.

The Lakers will snap their playoff drought at one year after going 45-37, which is 11 games better than they were last season, not to mention one game better than they were at their highest point in 2005 before Rudy Tomjanovich's resignation and Lamar Odom's injury.

Job well done.

Maybe the measure of it is how mundane Jackson made it sound when he was asked what's been most satisfying about the past six months.

``I think the development of some of our young players,'' Jackson said in the hallway outside the locker room. ``Having established career positions for Smush Parker, Brian Cook and Luke Walton. The rookies who had a chance to play a little bit. The redemption of Kobe (Bryant) after a disappointing season and injuries - to come back and be counted as the (league) scoring leader and also an MVP candidate. Lamar righting his game as the season's gone on, and playing a very important role for us. Kwame (Brown) disputing naysayers and coming to life as a center.

``It's all about the response the team has,'' Jackson said of his own sense of fulfillment. ``They've responded well. We have good community. We had hard days in the middle of winter, and survived that. We survived injuries, and the dog days in the middle of February. And then we righted ourselves and we improved. They're starting to get it.''

Wednesday, it was 15 consecutive points from Brown and Cook that put the Lakers in control in the first quarter of Game 82.

You wonder when exactly Jackson will teach these Lakers how to win close games. Since the start of February, they're 1-6 in games decided by four or fewer points.

The positives are so numerous that even though a 45-win season is technically his worst as an NBA head coach, Jackson will get votes for Coach of the Year.

He has taken one of the league's youngest teams and made it respectable.

He has taken some of the league's most maligned talents, Odom and Brown, and given them confidence. He has, with Bryant deserving credit here too, taken one of the league's most explosive relationships and made it productive.

Of the three NBA coaching greats who took on fresh challenges this season, Jackson has done the best.

Larry Brown signed the profession's biggest contract to coach the New York Knicks and his season became an unmitigated disaster, capped by his departure from a game last week on a stretcher. Pat Riley came down from the front office to replace Stan Van Gundy as coach of the Miami Heat 21 games into the season and earned mixed reviews, with Miami Herald columnist Dan Le Batard noting recently that he ``hasn't placed his imprint anywhere on the team beyond getting (Shaquille O'Neal) to slim down, which is no small thing.''

Jackson, meanwhile, set out at age 60 to prove that the coach of nine of the past 15 NBA champions with Chicago and Los Angeles could handle the grunt work as well.

He's in no position to say, ``I told you so.'' Upon returning, he'd mused about three R's - ``reconciliation,'' ``redemption'' and ``reuniting.'' But he'd made no promises about W's and L's - wins and losses.

The educated guess was that he'd stir a little controversy, light up Staples Center with his aura, maybe get the Lakers back to .500.

``If Phil is the coach next April and we're not in contention for the playoffs, that (PR buzz) won't mean a thing,'' Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said in June, the ``if'' a telling slip.

As it turns out, Phil still is the coach. The Lakers are in the playoffs, opening at Phoenix on Sunday. And in a delightfully quiet Lakers season, all of the buzz has been created by Bryant's 81-point game and 35-point average.

The sandals can wait a week or two.