Phil Jackson is in the news on Saturday, and for nothing too appetizing. The legendary coach sounded off about the state of the NBA and, in a way, sounded all too familiar.
Jackson reiterated a talking point that’s been hovering around the NBA for the last few years. The Hall of Famer appeared on Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton show and said he has a distaste for the current product, which stems from 2020.
“They even had slogans on the floor and the baseline,” Jackson noted. “It was trying… to bring a certain audience to the game, and they didn’t know it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as non-political,” he said, via Legion Hoops on Twitter.
Jackson’s comments follow a similar line of thinking that Conservative types have trotted out over the past few years. The NBA has stood up to the narratives well, but it hasn’t stopped people like Phil from saying it anyway. Never mind the references to the slogans on the baseline in the bubble, which, if memory serves right, simply said, “Black Lives Matter.” Tip-toeing around that and referring to the “certain audience” here in the way Jackson did is all sorts of appalling.
Those who saw the quote let Phil Jackson have it on Twitter. Many reacted rather negatively to the quote.
It's always good to remember that people who are very smart at one thing (coaching basketball teams with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant, and Shaq on them) are not always smart in other areas (actually coaching basketball; anything else). https://t.co/JUTXuoTVF8
— Not A Basketball Fan (@drewhamm5) April 22, 2023
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022