The Knicks finally appear to be gazing upon a bright future, having erased a 17-point deficit on Thursday night to pull back above the .500 mark, but recent Phil Jackson comments have brought back harsh reminders of a much darker time within the franchise.
The former Knicks president joined The Curious Leader podcast with Coby Karl earlier this week and had plenty to say about his tumultuous tenure in New York, which included trade disputes with Carmelo Anthony, sizable contracts for aging players like Joakim Noah, and a highwater mark of 32 wins before he was relieved of his duties three years into his five-year deal.
In Wednesday’s interview with Karl, Jackson said he believed Knicks owner James Dolan did him a favor in sending him on his way following the Anthony trade speculation.
“I wanted to trade Carmelo, and it was a situation where…he’s got a no-trade clause that they asked for, but I suggested that if there was a situation and I asked for a trade, I wanted to be compliant with it, and you could have all the choices that you want, but I want you to go along with the idea that maybe you time has come with being with the Knicks,” Jackson said. “That was met at the end without the compliance that it was best to leave. I think as a favor, Dolan relieved me of the job. I think he actually did me a favor.”
Jackson believed he lost his job not because of the team’s struggles and the discourse that continued to linger over the franchise, but because Dolan wanted to rescue him from the firestorm surrounding a potential Anthony trade.
“I think Jim thought I was facing too big of an uphill climb, and relieved me of the job because he saw the media was going to be backing Carmelo in this situation and I was going to be taking the lumps,” Jackson said.
Jackson also used the interview to question Anthony’s leadership, suggesting that it played a role in the Knicks’ struggles during his tenure that began one year after the Knicks won 54 games behind Anthony, who won the NBA scoring title that season.
“We had made a five-year contract with Carmelo, and Carmelo…I think wanted to be a leader, but I don’t think he completely knew how to be a leader as a player,” Jackson said. “I think the strength of his personality was intimidating to some of the coaches that were asked to coach the team. So there wasn’t this compliance that has to go between players and coaches. As much as I tried to interject my own beliefs in that, I don’t think you’re close enough to the ground in that situation to really be effective and dictate how things are going to be done.”
Jackson went as far as to compare what he dealt with in the height of the Anthony trade rumors to Donald Trump’s presidency.
“It was one of those things that created a firestorm,” Jackson said. “I kind of understand what Trump had to live with probably for his first three and a half years of office with media in just a very short term of being in that seat with the Knicks.”
The Knicks, no stranger to off-the-court drama in recent decades, were dealt another almost immediately into Jackson’s tenure as president, when his first head coach hire Derek Fisher was reportedly involved in a physical altercation with Matt Barnes due to a relationship with Barnes’ wife. Jackson points to that situation as a reason for Fisher not working out as the team’s coach, and believed it would have been best for Jackson to take the coaching duties over himself.
“There were just some issues that happened in leadership,” Jackson said. “Derek Fisher was one of my top leaders of the Laker teams and understood the relationship of players to the game and offensively systemed play, and he was caught up in a personal situation that was a distraction and at best undermined his authority with the team. Perhaps the best thing I could have done was coached the team myself, but I physically wasn’t able to do that.”
Overall, Jackson deflected any blame for New York’s struggles during his time as president, keeping the focus mainly on Anthony and the media. When first asked about what went wrong with the Knicks, Jackson quickly pointed toward the media, referencing former head coach Larry Brown’s firing, which took place eight years before Jackson became president of the team.
“In retrospect, I look back at it and there’s two things that go into it,” Jackson said. “One, you have a media that was decidedly against the organization, and they were looking for whatever things they could do to throw aspersions on the organization. It stemmed from some misunderstandings and some, according to people that were there when I got there, and I thought maybe we could overcome these things.”
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