Isiah: Jax still Zen Master to me

Isiah Thomas says Phil Jackson is still the Zen Master to him.

While he “respects’’ the way Carmelo Anthony has handled his undefined status, Thomas admits Jackson isn’t the first big name executive/ coach to fail in New York and it won’t hurt his legacy that he was fired in late June following a three-year, threemonth disaster.

Thomas, also a former Knicks president who had a similarly inept stint, has resurfaced as Liberty president. The Garden’s WNBA tenant clinched a third straight playoff berth this week under Thomas.

“There’ve been a lot of us who have come through New York that want to do well,’’ Thomas said while in Las Vegas for the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor bout and appearing on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani. “For whatever reason we didn’t do well. I look at Phil before he got to New York — how he was respected in the game. And that’s the Phil Jackson I choose to remember. That’s on the real.”

Thomas attempted to hire Jackson as a coach in 2005, but got rejected and he turned to Larry Brown.

“Believe me, Phil, myself, Donnie Walsh, Larry Brown, Lenny [Wilkins], all of us go back and try to figure out, ‘Man what did we do wrong?’ ” said Thomas. “If we can do it all over again, ‘What would we do different?’

“That’s the thing we love in New York. It brings out the best in you as a person because you really get pushed to the wall in terms of trying to figure out how to win and put it together and satisfy the fan base. That’s why we all want to crack that egg.”

The new Knicks management team — just like Jackson — have no more use for the 33-year-old Anthony, who is on the trading block. In the latest diss, Knicks president Steve Mills wrote an 1,100word treatise on his vision for the team’s future and made no mention of Anthony.

Perhaps in response to that and a season-ticket tweet that didn’t include his photo, Anthony tweeted: “When we have a clear purpose in life we can overcome anything. WITHOUT a sense of purpose our lives begin a slow decline.’’