What is Phil Jackson doing?
Seriously. I’m curious. Just weeks after the Knicks president went after LeBron James, making critical comments regarding his supposed “posse,” Jackson has now gone after his own player, Carmelo Anthony.
In an interview with CBS Sports, Jackson spoke about Anthony’s propensity to hold the ball too long. From the interview:
“Carmelo a lot of times wants to hold the ball longer than—we have a rule: If you hold a pass two seconds, you benefit the defense. So he has a little bit of a tendency to hold it for three, four, five seconds, and then everybody comes to a stop.”
Is that criticism fair? Maybe. But here’s the thing: Anthony’s been in the league a long time and has had a lot of success, and most good organizations realize that with him it’s a trade off. You sacrifice ball movement, sure, but you get one of the great pure scorers in league history. Most organizations would probably be OK with that.
On top of that, it’s not like the Knicks are playing terribly right now. They got smacked by the Cavaliers on Wednesday (wonder if LeBron had more motivation for that one), but they’re 7-3 over their last 10, sitting comfortably in 6th place and coming together well.
So why would Jackson think this is a good time to air out Anthony publicly? He can have a meeting with him. He has that ability. Instead he’s made it public, and Anthony was clearly sent reeling by it.
Anthony was asked about Jackson’s comment and in a rare show of displeasure he nearly walked out on the interview session, “Oh come on, man,” he said. “I’m gone, man. Thank you. Sorry man. I don’t want to answer those questions.”
When pressed he simply said, “I don’t even know what was said to be honest with you. I just don’t even want to talk about that, what he’s talking about exactly. I want to stay away from that at this point. My focus is my teammates and winning. We’ve been playing great basketball and that’s the only thing I’m focused on. Whatever Phil said he said it. I have nothing to say about that.”
And then Anthony posted this to his Instagram:
It’s another bizarre moment from Jackson, a man who can’t seem to get out of his own way. The Knicks are building something interesting right now. They’ve got a rising young star in Kristaps Porzingis, established veterans who can play in Anthony and Derrick Rose, and one of the best homecourt advantages in basketball (they’re 9-4 in Madison Square Garden this season.) Maybe it’s not “win a title” interesting, but they can make a run for sure, and having the team president alienating the face of the franchise is not the way to do it.
If Jackson wanted to coach, I guess he could have done that. But he’s not the coach, and he’s not only undermining Anthony with his comments, he’s undermining the man who is the coach, Jeff Hornacek. Jackson needs to back off and let his team play, and stop provoking the best players in the league, on his team or off. He’s not helping anything.
