POISON ZEN
Jackson fueling Knicks exit by backing harsh Melo critique
Phil Jackson stirred it up again on Tuesday, when he broke his 42-day Twitter silence by endorsing a column ripping Carmelo Anthony for being a scorer who will never win. The only explanation, seemingly, for the latest shot at his star is that Jackson is begging to be fired.
THE Internet was abuzz around 3:20 Monday afternoon, and with good reason. The Twitter account of one @PhilJackson11, which had laid dormant since Dec. 27, finally sprung once again to life.
Those were 42 empty days and nights indeed. No retweets. No misspellings while chronicling the comings and “goinks” of his beautiful mind. Nothing, not a word, since posting, solemnly, that he and Jeanie Buss had ended their relationship two days after Christmas.
Ah, but it was worth the wait.
“Bleacher’s Ding almost rings the bell, but I learned you don’t change the spot on a leopard with Michael Graham in my CBA daze.”
Yes, it was everything we’ve come to expect in a Phil Jackson quote, meaning equal parts OMG and WTF.
Meaning, far more plainly, if you read just a little more deeply: “Get me the hell out of here.”
Because this, quite clearly, is the first warning shot Jackson not only has no idea how to fix the mess the Knicks have become, but also he doesn’t have the stomach to even try. So one more time, he does the thing he’s become most proficient at: he uses a reliable media ally as cover to throw haymakers at Carmelo Anthony. It’s a tired old game from a tired old man. And enough is enough.
Backtrack: Jackson is referring to Kevin Ding, a terrific reporter for Bleacher Report who covered Jackson’s Lakers for the Orange County Register. Tuesday, Ding wrote a very tough and very fair story that had this as its money-shot point:
“Jackson undoubtedly overestimated his own ability — perhaps you’ve heard something lately about the no-trade clause he gifted to Melo in 2014 — to kindle Anthony’s evolution from superstar to winning superstar.”
Ding — unlike some of Jackson’s preferred media lapdogs — is a strong enough professional to draw those conclusions on his own. But Jackson’s endorsement — with its oh-so-cutesy pun included — certainly leaves little room for interpretation. Melo betrayed Jackson, because Melo isn’t Michael Jordan, and he isn’t Kobe Bryant. Those are things a blind man could see before he re-upped with a full no-trade clause two summers ago — just not Jackson.
Not until Ding rang the bell, apparently.
Of course, the second half of the tweet borders on lunacy. Michael Graham, you may recall, was Patrick Ewing’s goony wingman on the ’ 84 Georgetown team that won the NCAA Tournament, Graham’s only season as a Hoya. He later flunked out of school, wound up at the University of District Columbia and at one point early in 1986 he agreed to play for Jackson’s Albany Patroons in the CBA.
But Jackson told Graham and his handlers the most the CBA could pay him was around $475 a week. “Four hundred and seventy five dollars a week?” Graham told the Washington Post that January. “I mean, I can get a job and make that much.”
Yes, that is absolutely a story worth dredging up 31 years later especially since it has … well less than zero in common with what Jackson is presently dealing with when it comes to Anthony, when it comes to his flat-lining basketball team, when it comes to the reality he may well have chosen a second straight coach with no apparent clue how to keep a team together under trying circumstances.
It can’t help Jackson’s mood that his onceand-forever rival, Pat Riley, has once again risen from ashes and been allowed to twirl his mustache again, savoring the seismic advantage he has built over Jackson in the second phases of their respective careers. Jackson will forever have an 11-5 ring advantage over Riley as a coach, but it isn’t just that Riley has a 3-0 lead as an executive that is likely to last forever; a few weeks ago his team was 11-30. Now, they’ve won 11 straight. And sit a half-game north of the Knicks in the East in what was supposed to be a lost year.
So yes: no surprise that with his Penn Plaza fiefdom in tatters, Jackson would take to Twitter with another tired riddle, replete with contemporary references (for 1979, anyway) since it turns out tweeting is a whole lot easier than doing the job for which he was hired to do.
Easier to specialize in Melo tirades than Melo trades.
If you’re Jim Dolan, how do you interpret that tweet as anything other than the first phase in an exit strategy? And at this point, don’t you have to hope that’s what it really is?