Phil Jackson is one of the most decorated basketball coaches in history, and he unquestionably deserves his place in the Hall of Fame for his work with the Bulls and Lakers. But great coaches don’t always make suitable front office executives, just as star players don’t always translate on the sidelines.
Phil Jackson is digging the Knicks deeper into their sad little hole
Jackson continues to show his knack for making bad situations even worse.
Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports
Clearly, Jackson has been in over his head since taking over personnel duties for the Knicks: hiring Derek Fisher as his first coach, getting nickels on the dollar for Tyson Chandler, Iman Shumpert, and J.R. Smith, etc. The bad news is that he’s getting worse as time goes on.
Fresh off a mystifying 2016 offseason that involved trading for Derrick Rose and paying through the nose for Joakim Noah, Jackson spent much of the season warring with Carmelo Anthony, his team’s best player and most marketable star.
This served to alienate other Knicks, including Kristaps Porzingis, the team’s brightest hope and one of the league’s most prized young players. Sick of the dysfunction and ready to check out, Porzingis skipped his end-of-the-season exit interview with Jackson and the coaching staff.
This week, trade rumors popped up around Porzingis. Some members of the media tamped them down, reporting that the Knicks had a massive asking price. That soothed New York fans’ summertime sadness for a time, but Jackson found a way to get Knicks fans right back to the ledge — he has a talent for that — by revealing the depth of his anger with Porzingis in an interview with Al Trautwig on Wednesday.
Trautwig’s questions are meatballs -- simple, hot, crafted to elicit expository answers from Jackson. The Zen Master delivers and brings up the exit interview issue in direct response to a question about the Porzingis trade rumors. How’s that for pouring gasoline on a fire?
Jackson (falsely) claims that a player has never skipped out on an exit interview with him and simultaneously tries to pass it off as no big deal while clearly believing that it is a huge deal. Jackson is defiant and gracious in alternating sentences, almost as though he knows he needs to keep calm while raging on the inside.
What’s clear from the whole of the exchange is that Jackson is so mad he will absolutely trade Porzingis if the right offer comes along. That Jackson considers this a threat is especially humorous considering that the next topic Trautwig raises is the fate of Carmelo Anthony.
Jackson remains steadfast that Anthony should waive his no-trade clause so the Knicks can move him to another team and focus on a youth movement. (Here’s another reminder that Jackson signed then 31-year-old Noah and then 30-year-old Courtney Lee in free agency a year ago.)
Jackson’s argument in favor of Anthony leaving the Knicks has gotten more elegant — there’s a grace in Zen Master’s suggestion Melo may find a more appropriate challenge elsewhere as he winds up a Hall of Fame career. But Jackson is still suggesting publicly that Anthony ought to waive a no-trade clause Jackson granted him so that Jackson can get Anthony the hell out. It’s hard to lather up enough grace to cover that up.
Jackson and his media posse have been trying to browbeat and pressure Melo into waiving the clause all season. Melo isn’t budging. The whole melodrama has in fact shown Jackson’s wardrobe to be empty. He has no real power in that relationship, and it’s made him look more desperate, which has only served to alienate Anthony and by extension Anthony’s teammates, such as Porzingis. Jackson did this to himself.
Porzingis doesn’t have a no-trade clause. But is shopping him — a young, wealthy European with no existential or significant cultural ties to New York — any threat at all? Isn’t Jackson really just holding the metaphorical anvil over himself and by extension the Knicks’ tortured fans? (We are all Wile E. Coyote here.)
In a normal situation Jackson would have good reason to feel aggrieved by The Unicorn’s no-show. But there’s nothing normal about the Knicks, largely because of Jackson’s weird, shabby treatment of Anthony. That weird, shabby treatment is now being extended to Porzingis and all New York can do is stand by and cringe.
Jackson’s mind games worked as a coach, where he developed a rapport and relationships with players. He knew how and when to push buttons. As an executive, it’s not goink well. This latest plot to bring Porzingis to heel is only serving to further degrade anyone’s faith in Jackson as the president of the Knicks.
Two more years, Knicks fans. Hey, it’s baseball season!
